Well it all depends on how far you want to go to rhyme and what you’d consider a rhyming word.
For example, would you think that “debunk” would go into your example?
But that aside, I think that either -ight or -ed would probably take the cake for most rhymed words.
-ow (read: owe) would work out well and probably be the most rhymed if we were, again-- like I asked above, including very LONG (yet still rhymable) words like “although” and “arrow” and any other very, very long word as long as it ended in that sound.
If that doesn’t count though, I’d have to stick with -ight or -ed (these are just guesses, however).
I vaugely remember an alphabetical rhyme book. I think it was pink, about 100 pages, and hardcover. It purportedly was the “biggest rhyme book ever” (or something to that affect). Since it’s alphabetical, it should have the answer.
This makes me wonder again if the OP would include any rhymed words as long as they ended in the same rhyme. Because then the list would just go on with words like: Verify and multiply and stupify and beautify and etc.
Yeah, and dry, fry, the dreaded “gry”, etc. We could characterize by initial consonant clusters, and I think this class would still do pretty well. But I think the OP is concerned only about characterization by initial single letters.
That’s 14 distinct initial letters. We can toss in “a” and “eh” and “ray” and “yea” to make it 18. And there’s the word “quay” for 19, but it’s sort of uncommon. And perhaps you’ll count “kay” (as in the letter), to make it 20. Just missing I, O, U, V, X, and Z, then.
But those don’t rhyme with the one-syllable “eye” words… At least they’re not what are known as “perfect” rhymes, which is what I assume most people talk about when they talk about rhyming in general. A typical percect rhyme is one in which the last stressed syllable and any following unstressed syllables, contain the same sounds. For example, “Audible” and “laudible” are perfect rhymes, while “audible” and “kibble” are not.
As I noted, I’m working under a one-syllable restriction.
That’s one pronunciation, but according to dictionary.com it can also be pronounced as “kay”.
I considered that, but decided it wasn’t really reasonable to classify “vey” as an English word.
Yes, but they certainly don’t spell it that way, and it seems to me this thread is all about spelling, having its focus on initial single letters rather than initial phonemes.