Etymograph

English

rime

Rime comes from Middle English rim ‘hoar frost’, and goes back to Proto-Germanic *hrīmą.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*hrīmą‘frost, hoarfrost’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*hrīmreconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150hrīm‘frost’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500rim‘hoar frost’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1701rime

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*hrīmą‘frost, hoarfrost’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*hrīmreconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150hrīm‘frost’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500rim‘hoar frost’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1701rime

Earliest quotation: 1701, Nehemiah Grew, Of the Principles of Bodies: “In a Hoar-Froſt, that vvhich vve call a Rime,…”

The story

The noun is derived from Middle English rim, rime, rym, ryme (‘hoar frost; rime’), from Old English hrīm (‘frost’), from Proto-West Germanic *hrīm (‘rime; hoar frost’), from Proto-Germanic *hrīmą (North Germanic), *hrīmaz, *hrīmô (‘rime; hoar frost’), probably from Proto-Indo-European *krey- (‘to graze, touch; to streak’).

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *krey- ‘to graze, touch’

certain, secretary, secret, crisis, criminal, discrimination, discretion, critic, critique, discrete, discreet, discern, criterion, hypocrite, discriminate, riddle, endocrine, excretion, excrement, excrete, incriminate, incrimination, certitude, ridder, criterium, recrimination, 48 more

through Middle English rim ‘hoar frost’

rhyme, rim

Another origin of rime

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500rim
  2. Englishtodayrime

A variant of rhyme (noun and verb), from Middle English rim, rime, ryme (“identical sound in words from the vowel in their stressed syllables to their ends; measure, meter, rhythm; song, verse, etc., with rhyming lines”, noun), and Middle English rimen, rymen, rim, rime (“to recite or write verse; to sing songs; to tell a story in verse; to fit into verse; (figurative) to agree, make sense”, verb): see further at rhyme.

Another origin of rime

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*Hrewh₁-‘to open’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*rūmijaną‘to clear out, make room’reconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*rūmijan‘to clear out, make room’reconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150rīman‘to make roomy, enlarge, extend, spread, widen’
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500rimen‘to clear (a way)’
  6. Englishtodayrime

Today it means

noun Archaic in the form rimes: originally, any frozen dew forming a white deposit on exposed surfaces; hoar frost (sense 1).

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *hrīmą / rime

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