rhyme or reason

noun

|Updated on: 9 Jun 2018

Definition of rhyme or reason

: good sense or reason

Recent Examples of rhyme or reason from the Web

There’s simply not much rhyme or reason to their actions at times.

— jeremy woo, SI.com, "Game 5 Loss Exposes Cavs' Lack of Offensive Creativity," 23 May 2018
Moments later, the sun would come back out with seemingly no rhyme or reason.

— joshua bowling, azcentral, "After disease outbreak, Apache trout are returning to waterways in the White Mountains," 9 May 2018
There doesn’t seem to be rhyme or reason for this stylistic mish-mash, though the play certainly allows for just this range of interpretations.

— christopher arnott, courant.com, "A Likable "As You Like It" At CT Rep," 23 Apr. 2018
The branches, or tentacles, are chaotic, stretching out or stopping abruptly with little rhyme or reason.

— sophie weiner, Popular Mechanics, "This Sea Monster Drawing Beautifully Depicts The Collatz Conjecture," 28 Mar. 2017
There seems to be little rhyme or reason to what gets deranked and what doesn’t.

— constance grady, Vox, "Did you hear how bad Sean Penn’s book is? It’s really bad.," 31 Mar. 2018
Police also are considering a rhyme or reason to the targets.

— sean rossman, USA TODAY, "Austin police have received more than 1,200 suspicious package calls since bombings started," 20 Mar. 2018
Dwarfs, like bees, appear aimless in their flights—up and down, left and right, with no obvious rhyme or reason.

— shannon stirone, Scientific American, "Dancing Dwarf Galaxies Deepen Dark Matter Mystery," 1 Feb. 2018
According to Adam, there's little rhyme or reason to the statues' placement, or sometimes even the underlying motive.

— chris gray, Houston Chronicle, "Metal menagerie off Texas 288 springs from the mind of art-loving owner of Texas Pipe & Supply," 3 Jan. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'rhyme or reason.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.