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leather

UK/ˈlɛðə/US/ˈlɛðɚ/
nounB1Very common — you will meet it every day · #2,007 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: leathers

Leather is the strong material made from animal skin, used for shoes and belts. A leather jacket, real leather, leather boots.

Tanning is what turns skin into leather and stops it rotting, and the process is ancient and dirty — vegetable tanning takes months, chrome tanning takes a day. Full-grain is the outer layer and the most durable; bonded leather is scraps glued together. Note that the word is Old English and unchanged.

Scott Bauer · Public domain

Definitions of leather

  1. 1nounleatherMaterial made from treated animal skin.B1

    “He bought a brown leather jacket.”

leather is a material.

Where it comes from

Old English lether is a Germanic word, possibly borrowed from Celtic. It has changed very little.

  1. Middle English

    lether

  2. English, today

    leather

From Middle English lether. From Middle English lether, from Old English leþer (“leather”), from Proto-West Germanic leþr, from Proto-Germanic leþrą (“leather”), possibly borrowed from Proto-Celtic ɸlitrom, letros, from Proto-Indo-European pel- (“skin, hide”). Cognate with stq Leder (“leather”), West Frisian leare (“leather”), Low German Leder (“leather”), Dutch leder, leer (“leather”), German Leder (“leather”), Danish læder (“leather”), Swedish läder (“leather”), Icelandic leður (“leather”). Compare also English fell (“skin, hide, pelt”), film.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Clothes & Fashion

Practise this word

leather in the wild

  • Leather making has been practiced for more than 7,000 years and the leading producers of leather today are China and India.

    Leather

  • Tanning, or hide tanning, is the process of treating skins and hides of animals to produce leather.

    Tanning (leather)

  • Common commercial hides include leather from cattle and other livestock animals, buckskin, alligator skin and snake skin.

    Hide (skin)

  • All are used for shoes, clothes, leather bags, belts, or other fashion accessories.

    Hide (skin)

  • Wallets are generally made of fabric or leather, and they are usually pocket-sized and foldable.

    Wallet

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.