Limerick

A limerick is a five-line comic poem with the rhyme scheme AABBA, a bouncing rhythm, and a last line that delivers the joke.

Edward Lear wrote this in 1846.

There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, "It is just as I feared! Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!"

The pattern is plain to see. Lines one, two and five end on "beard", "feared" and "beard". Lines three and four, shorter, share "Hen" and "Wren".

What the form requires

• Five lines, AABBA. The long lines carry the setup and the punchline. The short pair speeds things up in the middle.
• A galloping rhythm. Lines one, two and five have three strong beats, and lines three and four have two. The beats fall on every third syllable or so, which is what gives the form its bounce.
• A turn at the end. The fifth line should land the joke, often by twisting or repeating the first line.

Why it matters to a writer or editor

The limerick is the cleanest lesson in comic timing. The joke only works if the last word is the right word, so the form trains the habit of putting the strongest word at the end of the line. That is useful advice for any sentence, funny or not.

When editing a limerick, read it aloud. If the rhythm trips, the fix is nearly always one syllable too many or too few, and no amount of cleverness covers a stumble in the meter. Check that the last line surprises. A fifth line that merely repeats the first has the shape of a joke and none of the payoff. Many limericks also hang on a pun.

Read an example

Read an example: Edward Lear, who made the form famous, in his Book of Nonsense.

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'

Edward Lear, 1846

Short, bouncy verse like this is easy to find in the Bossfeed daily poem archive.

Frequently asked questions

What is the rhyme scheme of a limerick?

AABBA. Lines one, two and five rhyme with each other and are longer. Lines three and four are shorter and share a different rhyme.

Why is it called a limerick?

The name is usually linked to the city of Limerick in Ireland, though nobody is sure why. Edward Lear made the form popular in the 1840s with his Book of Nonsense.

Do limericks have to be rude?

No. The bawdy limerick is a tradition of its own, but the form began as nonsense verse and works equally well for clean, silly or clever subjects.