noun
- a humorous four-line poem with an AABB rhyme scheme, typically about a famous person, where the first line ends with the person’s name
Usage: literary
Examples
- The students wrote clerihews about historical figures for their poetry assignment.
- His clerihew about Einstein was both clever and amusing.
- A typical clerihew begins with someone’s name and tells a funny story about them.
- She composed a clerihew that made the whole class laugh.
- The poet Edmund Clerihew Bentley invented the clerihew form.
- Writing clerihews helps students practice both rhyming and biographical research.