Rime tables or rhyme tables, as used in Chinese character dictionaries, show characters listed by their onsets, rimes, grades of rime, and tones, but not necessarily in that order.
The onset is the beginning of a sound, and usually this is a consonant, but where it begins with a vowel, it is said to have a zero initial.
The rime itself is composed of the medial, main vowel, then ending and associated tone.
Rime tables are very important tools in the study of historical Chinese phonology. In traditional Chinese phonology, there are various interpretations for the grade of rime called Deng 等, with some scholars thinking it has something to do with the properties of the vowel, since within a rime class called She 攝, various distinct rimes called Yun 韻 can be grouped together if they are complementary. There are also inner series 內轉(neizhuan) and outer series 外轉 (waizhuan) categories, thought to be related to the vowel heights of vowel in the rime.
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