Definition of "rime"

rime¹

/ɹaɪm/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural rimes
1. Archaic in the form rimes: originally, any frozen dew forming a white deposit on exposed surfaces; hoar frost (sense 1).
  Quotations
  In a Hoar-Froſt, that vvhich vve call a Rime, is a Multitude of Quadrangular Priſmes, exactly figured, but piled vvithout any Order, one over another.
  1701, Nehemiah Grew, “Of the Principles of Bodies”, in Cosmologia Sacra: Or A Discourse of the Universe as It is the Creature and Kingdom of God. […], London: […] W. Rogers, S. Smith, and B[enjamin] Walford: […], 1st book, paragraph 33, page 16
  Sylphs! if vvith morn deſtructive Eurus ſprings, / O, claſp the Harebel vvith your velvet vvings; / Screen vvith thick leaves the Jaſmine as it blovvs, / And ſhake the vvhite rime from the ſhuddering Roſe; […]
  1791, [Erasmus Darwin], “Canto IV”, in The Botanic Garden; a Poem, in Two Parts. […], London: J[oseph] Johnson, […], part I (The Economy of Vegetation), page 204, lines 523–526
  And moonlight splendour of intensest rime, / With which frost paints the pines in winter time.
  1820 (date written), Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Witch of Atlas”, in Mary W[ollstonecraft] Shelley, editor, Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, London: […] [C. H. Reynell] for John and Henry L[eigh] Hunt, […], published 1824, stanza XLIV, page 43
  The night had been heavy and lowering: but towards the morning it had changed to a slight frost: and the ground and the trees were now covered with rime.
  1821 September–October, [Thomas De Quincey], “[Part I.] Preliminary Confessions.”, in Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, 2nd edition, London: […] [J. Moyes] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1823, page 71
  But there are accents sweeter far / When Love leaps down our evening star, / Holds back the blighting wings of Time, / Melts with his breath the crusty rime, […]A figurative use.
  1846, Walter Savage Landor, “[Miscellaneous.] [Poem] CCXX.”, in The Works of Walter Savage Landor. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], page 656, column 1
  The raw rimes were not so pernicious as in the hollows, and the frosts were scarcely so severe.
  1883 March, Thomas Hardy, “The Three Strangers”, in Wessex Tales: Strange, Lively, and Commonplace […], volume I, London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1888, page 5
  I rose, put on my shoes, and began to walk up and down the floor to try and warm myself. I looked out; there was rime on the window; it was snowing.
  1899, Knut Hamsun, “Part III”, in George Egerton [pseudonym; Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright], transl., Hunger […], London: Leonard Smithers and Co […], page 167
2. (figurative)
  1. A film or slimy coating.
  2. White hair as an indication of old age.
    Quotations
    Tales that have the rime of age, / And chronicles of Eld.
    1838 October, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Prelude”, in Voices of the Night, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, published 1839, page xi
    The cold within him [Ebenezer Scrooge] froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin.
    1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave I. Marley’s Ghost.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], page 3
3. (meteorology)
  1. Ice formed by the rapid freezing of cold water droplets of fog on to a cold surface.
  2. A coating or sheet of ice so formed.
4. (Britain, regional) A cold fog or mist.
  Quotations
  When Tommy and Elspeth reached the Den the mist lay so thick that they had to feel their way though it to the Ailie, where they found Gavinia alone and scared. […] "As sure as death," she said, "there was some living thing standing there; I couldna see it for the rime, but I heard it breathing hard."
  1896, J[ames] M[atthew] Barrie, “End of the Jacobite Rising”, in Sentimental Tommy: The Story of His Boyhood, London, Paris: Cassell and Company […], page 341
verb
third-person singular simple present rimes, present participle riming, simple past and past participle rimed
1. (transitive)
  1. (loosely) hoar frost.
    Quotations
    ―No more ſhall hoary Boreas, iſſuing forth / VVith Eurus, lead the tempeſts of the North; / Rime the pale Davvn, or veil'd in flaky ſhovvers / Chill the ſvveet boſoms of the ſmiling Hours.
    1791, [Erasmus Darwin], “Canto IV”, in The Botanic Garden; a Poem, in Two Parts. […], London: J[oseph] Johnson, […], part I (The Economy of Vegetation), page 186, lines 311–314
    [T]he hoar was a blanching on post and hedge, riming the dykes, […]
    1933 July, Lewis Grassic Gibbon [pseudonym; James Leslie Mitchell], “Stratus”, in Cloud Howe, London: Jarrolds Publishers […], page 193
  2. (figurative) To cover (something) with a thin coating or film; to coat.
    Quotations
    Oh, London, London! […] the mornings silvery gray, and the multitudinous monuments rimed by years, thunder of hoofs in ways without end, and the silence of mighty parks—Bud lay awake in the nights to think of them.
    1907, Neil Munro, chapter XXXII, in Bud […], New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers, page 300
2. (intransitive) Sometimes followed by up: of a thing: to become covered with rime or (loosely) hoar frost.

rime²

/ɹaɪm/

noun
plural rimes
1. Archaic spelling of rhyme (“word that rhymes with another, in that it is pronounced identically with the other word from the vowel in its stressed syllable to the end, etc.; (linguistics) the second part of a syllable, from the vowel on, as opposed to the onset”).
  Quotations
  Libels are caſt againſt thee in the ſtreete, / Ballads and rimes made of thy ouerthrovv.
  1594 (first publication), Christopher Marlow[e], The Trovblesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edvvard the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, [Act II], signature [D4], recto
  Thou, thou, Lyſander, thou haſt giuen her rimes, / And interchang'd loue tokens vvith my childe: […]
  c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, […], published 1600, [Act I, scene i], signature A2, verso
  [M]ary I cannot ſhevv it in rime, I haue tried, I can finde out no rime to Ladie, but babie, an innocent rime: for ſcorne, horne, a hard rime: for ſchoole foole, a babling rime: very ominous endings, no, I vvas not borne vnder a riming plannet, nor I cannot vvooe in feſtiuall termes: […]
  1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, Much Adoe about Nothing. […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, [Act V, scene ii], signature I, verso
  VVhen in the Chronicle of vvaſted time, / I ſee diſcriptions of the faireſt vvights, / And beautie making beautifull old rime, / In praiſe of Ladies dead, and louely Knights, […]
  1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 106”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, signature G3, recto
  I thought, if I could dravv my paines, / Through Rimes vexation, I ſhould them allay, / Griefe brought to numbers cannot be ſo fierce, / For, he tames it, that fetters it in verſe.
  a. 1631 (date written), J[ohn] Donne, “The Triple Foole”, in Poems, […] with Elegies on the Authors Death, London: […] M[iles] F[lesher] for Iohn Marriot, […], published 1633, page 204
  Sometimes a man knovvs a place determinate, vvithin the compaſſe vvhereof he is to ſeek: […] as a man ſhould run over the Alphabet, to ſtart a rime.
  1651, Thomas Hobbes, “Of the Consequence or Trayne of Imaginations”, in Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, London: […] [William Wilson] for Andrew Crooke, […], 1st part (Of Man), page 10
  [S]hould not all the world delight to honour this unfortunate and loyal follower of the Muses? May Apollo send him rimes hitherto undreamed of; […]
  1878, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Précy and the Marionettes”, in An Inland Voyage, London: C[harles] Kegan Paul & Co., […], page 232
verb
third-person singular simple present rimes, present participle riming, simple past and past participle rimed
1. Archaic spelling of rhyme.
  Quotations
  Ha, ha, hovv vildely doth this Cynicke rime?
  1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene ii], page 125, column 2
  VVill you Rime vpon't, / And vent it for a Mock'rie? Heere is one: / Tvvo Boyes, an Oldman (tvvice a Boy) a Lane, / Preſeru'd the Britaines, vvas the Romanes bane.
  1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene v], page 393, column 1
  How Panurge and the rest rim'd with Poetick Fury [chapter title]
  1653, François Rabelais, Thomas Urquhart and Peter Anthony Motteux, transl., chapter XLVII, in The Works of Francis Rabelais, Doctor in Physick: Containing Five Books of the Lives, Heroick Deeds, and Sayings of Gargantua, and His Sonne Pantagruel. […], London: […] [Thomas Ratcliffe and Edward Mottershead] for Richard Baddeley, […]; republished in volume II, London: […] Navarre Society […], book the fifth, page 418
  “He was aye rimin’,” said Miss Newbigging, “about this bonny countryside and the dacent folk that bode in it.”
  1936 July, John Buchan, “Sanctuary”, in The Island of Sheep, London: Hodder and Stoughton, published July 1938, part II (Laverlaw), pages 152–153

rime³

/ɹaɪm/

verb
third-person singular simple present rimes, present participle riming, simple past and past participle rimed
1. (transitive, intransitive, Lincolnshire, archaic) Followed by up: to count (something); to number, to reckon.

rime⁴

/ɹaɪm/

verb
third-person singular simple present rimes, present participle riming, simple past and past participle rimed
1. Synonym of ream
  1. To enlarge (a hole), especially using a tool such as a reamer.
  2. To remove debris from inside (something, such as a freshly bored hole or a pipe) using a tool.

rime⁵

/ɹaɪm/

verb
third-person singular simple present rimes, present participle riming, simple past and past participle rimed
1. (transitive, Ireland, rare) To dye (wool or yarn) reddish-brown by boiling or soaking in water with alder twigs.

rime⁶

/ɹaɪm/

noun
plural rimes
1. (obsolete) A narrow aperture or opening; a chink, a crack, a fissure; a rent, a rip.
  Quotations
  [T]he ſevvet of oxen […] is alſo good againſt the inflammation of the eares, the ſtupidity and dulneſſe of the teeth, the running of the eyes, the vlcers and rimes of the mouth, and ſtiffneſſe of the neck.
  1607, Edward Topsell, “Of Cowes”, in The Historie of Fovre-footed Beastes. […], London: […] William Iaggard, page 83
  [T]hough birds have no Epiglottis, yet can they ſo contract the rime or chinck of their Larinx, as to prevent the admiſſion of vvet or dry ingeſted, […]
  1646, Thomas Browne, “Of the Passage of Meate and Drinke”, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], London: […] T[homas] H[arper] for Edward Dod, […], 4th book, paragraph 10, page 198
verb
third-person singular simple present rimes, present participle riming, simple past and past participle rimed
1. (intransitive, obsolete, rare) Followed by into: to probe, to pry.
  Quotations
  Our act was, with finger, and nail, and eye, to rime into every jot of it [a case]; and our words were—'I am sure there is something inside. If not, it would open sensibly.'
  1877, R[ichard] D[oddridge] Blackmore, “Hermetically Sealed”, in Erema: Or My Father’s Sin […], volume III, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], page 55

Definition of "rime"

rime1

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rime2

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rime4

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rime6

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rime⁵

rime⁶