Reim

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A thin skin or film, especially in Scots dialect usage ; an archaic spelling of the word for matching sounds at the ends of lines of verse
2. A delicate membrane or layer, as used in Scottish speech ; an old variant spelling of rhyme, the repetition of similar sounds in poetry
3. In Scots, a thin film or covering on a surface ; a obsolete form of rhyme, meaning the matching of end sounds in verse

Etymology: "Reim" is a South African word for a strip of rawhide or leather, typically cut into a long thong and used for binding, lashing, or making whips and harnesses. It was borrowed from Afrikaans "riem," which has the same meaning and descends from Dutch "riem," a word that English speakers also met in the older form "ream," used for a strap or thong in shipbuilding and leatherwork. The term belongs to the vocabulary of the southern African frontier, where settlers and herders relied on rawhide for almost everything that needed tying together. Its presence in English comes through the colonial contact between Dutch-speaking settlers and the English-speaking world in the Cape and the interior, so the word carries the practical history of that landscape in its very meaning.