rime \RAHYM\,
noun:
A coating of tiny, white, granular ice particles, caused by the rapid freezing of water droplets.
The Chief’s follow spot cast a light like a rime of ice into the murk, and mom swam inside this circle across the entire length of the lake.
-- Karen Russell, "Swamplandia!"
When it got real fierce, when your very speech would freeze as it emanated from your lips and blow back in stinging rime against the cheeks, we hung close to the tepees and ate the dried meat taken the summer before and stored in rawhide parfleches and pemmican, the greasier the better on account of a bellyful of melting fat will warm you sooner and stick longer than most anything I know.
-- Thomas Berger, "Little Big Man"
Rime, also known as hoarfrost, comes from the Old English hrim. Used mainly in Northern England and Scotland for centuries, it was revived in literature in the 19th century.
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