rhyme or reason

English

Alternative forms

• rhyme nor reason

Etymology

Calque of Middle French n'y avoir ryme ne raison (Eustache Deschamps), attributed to the poet Edmund Spenser in a conversation with Queen Elizabeth I.

(Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

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Noun

rhyme or reason (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic, chiefly in the negative) Logic; common sense.

   Prices vary considerably from one town to another with no apparent rhyme or reason.

   He would often fly into an unexpected rage without rhyme or reason.

Usage notes

• Almost always used in a negative form, particularly with no and, adverbially, without. May also occur as rhyme nor reason, e.g. after neither.

Translations

logic or common sense

• Finnish: tolkku (fi), (adverb, negative) syyttä suotta (fi)
• French: (verbs, negative) n’avoir ni queue ni tête (fr), ne rimer à rien (fr)
• Galician: sen ton nin son
• German: Sinn und Verstand
• Italian: (negative) né capo né coda, (adverb, negative) senza capo né coda
• Polish: no equivalent term in Polish, but see bez ładu i składu (pl)
• Portuguese: sem pé nem cabeça (pt)
• Russian: (negative) ни скла́ду, ни ла́ду (ni skládu, ni ládu)
• Scottish Gaelic: (negative) gun ì, gun ò, gun adhbhar
• Swedish: rim och reson (sv)

Further reading

• Gary Martin (1997–) “Rhyme or reason”, in The Phrase Finder.