leathern

From Middle English letheren, from Old English liþren, from Proto-Germanic *liþrīnaz (“of leather, leathern”), equivalent to leather +‎ -en. Cognate with Scots letherin, lethrin, West Frisian learen, Dutch lederen, leren (“leathern”), German ledern (“leathern”).

leathern (not comparable)

1. (dated) Made of leather.

   Synonym: (more current) leather

   • 1806 [c. 20 BC], Robert Arrol (translator), Cornelii Neoptis Vitæ Excellentium Imperatorum, translation of De viris illustribus by Cornelius Nepos:

     For the doing of this matter, he ordered a great many leathern bottles and sacks to be got together; […]

   • 1823, Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia:

     He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter-of-a-penny loaf — our crug — moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggings, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from.

   • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     Still more pleased was he when, inverting a leathern pouch over the end of the reed, and so filling it with the gas, he was able to send it soaring up into the air.

   • 1919, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Warlord of Mars‎, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2008:

     Except for his leathern harness, covered thick with jewels and metal […]