Other forms: rims
The rim is the outer ring of a wheel, the metal part that carries the tyre. Bolted to the hub, and easily kerbed.
Cyclists and drivers both use the word, and alloy rims are a selling point on a car. The word means the edge of anything circular, so a cup has a rim and so does a crater. Basketball uses it for the hoop itself. The verb is rare, and rimmed with is the usual adjective form, as in eyes rimmed with red.
Rim has always been an edge. Old English rima covered a rim, a border, a bank and a coastline alike, from a Germanic word meaning simply edge.
Old English
rima
Middle English
rim
English, today
rim
Built from
From Middle English rim, from Old English rima. From Middle English rim, rym, rime, from Old English rima (“rim, edge, border, bank, coast”), from Proto-Germanic rimô, rembô (“edge, border”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European rem-, remə- (“to rest, support, be based”). Cognate with stq Rim (“plank, wooden cross, trellis”), Old Saxon rimi (“edge; border; trim”), Icelandic rimi (“a strip of land”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA