Limerick Generator

Five lines. Two rhymes. One guaranteed laugh. The limerick is the funniest fixed form in English poetry, and our limerick generator turns your ideas into perfectly structured AABBA verse in seconds flat.

Maybe you need a funny limerick for a birthday card, or you want to roast a friend at their retirement party. Maybe you're just bored and feel like writing something that rhymes with "Nantucket." Whatever the reason, this tool gives you a 5 line poem with the right rhythm, the right rhyme, and the right amount of mischief. And if you're feeling romantic about it, our love limerick generator proves the form can be surprisingly tender too.

What Is a Limerick?

A limerick poem is a short humorous verse built on five lines with an AABBA rhyme scheme. Lines one, two, and five are longer (typically eight or nine syllables in anapestic trimeter), while lines three and four are shorter (five or six syllables in anapestic dimeter). That bouncy, galloping rhythm is what makes limericks feel like they're practically begging to be read aloud.

The form gets its name from the Irish city of Limerick, though the exact connection remains fuzzy. Some scholars point to a 19th-century parlor game where participants improvised verses and followed each one with the chorus "Will you come up to Limerick?" The person who truly cemented the form in literary history was Edward Lear. His 1846 collection A Book of Nonsense popularized limericks as a distinct genre of humorous verse, giving the world dozens of absurd characters from peculiar towns doing peculiar things. Lear's limericks often repeated the first line's ending word in the last line, a convention later poets happily abandoned in favor of a punchline.

The tight structure forces wit. You can't ramble in five lines, so every word has to earn its spot. You can write a birthday limerick for a card, craft something cheeky for a retirement toast, or just entertain yourself on a Tuesday afternoon.

How to Write a Limerick

Start with your last line. The punchline is the whole point, so write it first. If your ending isn't funny or surprising, the rest of the poem won't save it. Once you've got a strong closer, work backward to set it up.

Your first line traditionally introduces a character and a place: "There once was a man from [somewhere]." That's the classic opener, but you don't have to follow it slavishly. What matters is that line one establishes your subject and gives you a rhyme sound to work with. Line two extends the setup and rhymes with line one. Lines three and four, the short ones, pivot the poem in a new direction, rhyming with each other. Then line five delivers the payoff, rhyming back with lines one and two.

The most common mistake people make is ignoring the meter. A limerick without its signature da-da-DUM rhythm sounds flat, like a joke told without timing. Read your draft aloud and tap the stresses. If it doesn't bounce, rewrite it. The second mistake is forcing a rhyme that doesn't serve the joke. The third? Being too clean. Limericks thrive on irreverence, so don't sanitize the fun out of your verse. Near-rhymes and proper nouns are your best friends, since place names like "Devizes," "Peru," and "Verdun" open up rhyme possibilities you'd never find with common words.

Famous Limerick Examples

Edward Lear's most quoted limerick still holds up after nearly two centuries:

"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, A Book of Nonsense

What makes this work is the escalation. The old man's problem isn't one bird, it's an entire aviary. Lear understood that comedy lives in specificity. "Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren" is funnier than "a bunch of birds" because the exact inventory makes the absurdity feel real.

Here's a classic that shows how the AABBA rhyme scheme can weaponize a punchline:

"A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week
But I'm damned if I see how the helican."
— Dixon Lanier Merritt

Merritt invented words to make his rhymes land, and that's the lesson here. A funny limerick doesn't follow rules, it bends language until the joke clicks. The made-up words "belican" and "helican" shouldn't work, but they do because the rhythm carries them.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a limerick?

A limerick isn't just a funny poem, it's a tiny emotional release. At its core, it's a five-line verse that uses rhythm and rhyme to deliver a punchline, a groan, or a surprisingly sharp observation. What makes it special is how it mirrors the way humans actually think in jokes: setup, tension, twist. It's the poetic equivalent of a well-timed one-liner, not just a definition you memorize.

How do I write a limerick?

The biggest mistake writers make is forcing the rhyme instead of building around it. Start with your punchline, work backwards. Pick your three rhyming words first (lines 1, 2, 5), then fill in the short lines (3 and 4). Don't sacrifice the bouncy da-DUM-da rhythm just to make words fit.

What are the rules of limerick?

Here's what most guides won't tell you: the 'rules' are really just tendencies. Yes, AABBA rhyme scheme and anapestic meter are traditional, but plenty of celebrated limericks bend both. The real non-negotiable is the comedic or ironic turn, usually in line five. Lose the rhythm slightly? Forgivable. Lose the twist? It stops being a limerick and becomes a bad short poem. Modern poets break meter constantly and still land great limericks.

Can AI write good limericks?

Honestly? Yes, especially for structured forms like limericks. AI handles AABBA rhyme schemes and anapestic rhythm surprisingly well because they follow predictable patterns. Where it occasionally stumbles is in truly unexpected punchlines or hyper-personal humor. That's why our limerick generator lets you customize inputs, the more specific your prompt, the sharper the result. Try something personal like a Limerick For Mom and see how well it captures real personality.

What are famous limerick examples?

Beyond Edward Lear's well-known classics, some lesser-celebrated gems deserve attention. Ogden Nash wrote limericks with intentionally 'wrong' rhymes for comic effect, a technique called pararhyme. There's also a rich tradition of anonymous political limericks from 18th-century British pamphlets that were genuinely scandalous. For something warmer and shareable today, Love Limericks have quietly become one of the most popular modern uses of the form across greeting cards and social media.

Limerick Generator

AI Limerick Generator