rim shot

noun

1

: a drum beat in which the shaft of the drumstick strikes the rim of the drum at the same time that the tip of the stick strikes the head

The pause between a trumpet note and the drummer's rim shot is just the right length to swing the hips for emphasis.

—Alex Brown

"Let me go again," Pennie pleads, and this time he jumps on top of the track, pounding the kick drum and hitting all the rim shots with perfect savagery.

—Kyle Anderson

especially : such a beat used to draw attention to the humor or pointedness of a preceding statement

When I would tell a joke in middle school in the '80s, I would swing my arm to the left the way he did. Of course, he did it to signal to the band for a rim shot. I had no band when I was walking around in seventh grade.

—Jason Zinoman

2

basketball : a shot that strikes the rim of the hoop

The improbable miracle run may be the dominant story line in sports. … There was Butler coming within a rim shot of a national basketball championship.

—Robert Andrew Powell

Word History

First Known Use

1934, in the meaning defined at sense 1