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 (General Australian):

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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.

   • 1992 February 2, Ed Zirnheld, “Disappointed”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 28, page 4:

     While many of your essays were interesting, some seemed little more than self-promotion on the part of authors. I wished there had been a central essay to anchor the others or some kind of discernable rhyme or reason to their placement. As it was, I could not help but feel that it was a mish-mash of unrelated and poorly edited information.

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.