ˈwash-leather
[f. wash v. Cf. G. waschleder (perh. from Eng.)
According to some writers the material is so called ‘from the fact that it may be easily washed’ (Encycl. Brit. ed. 9 XIV. 390). But the obsolete synonyms washen, washed leather suggest that the original reference may have been to the ‘washing’ which is an important part of the process of manufacture.]
A soft kind of leather, usually of split sheepskin, dressed to imitate chamois leather.
| 1681 J. Chetham Angler's Vade-m. iv. §13 (1689) 43 Making the body of yellow wash-leather. 1774 Phil. Trans. LXIV. 349 Two or three circles of wash-leather dipt in oil. 1848 Dickens Dombey xxxviii, Miss Tox..polished him up with a piece of wash-leather. 1857 Reade Course of True Love 8 All one colour, like wash-leather, or an actor by daylight. |
b. attrib. (quasi-adj.) Made of wash-leather. Also Path. of eruptions: Resembling wash-leather in appearance.
| c 1662 in Verney Mem. (1907) II. 262 [For the cold in winter he wants] wash-leather gloves to write in. a 1672 Wood Life (O.H.S.) II. 51 A paire of wash leather gloves. 1772 Foote Nabob ii. (1778) 37 Tom Ramskin..had a fifty-pound note for a pair of wash-leather breeches. 1836 Dickens Sk. Boz, Parish vii, He wore..wash-leather gloves. 1854 Surtees Handley Cr. xli. (1901) II. 36 Wellington boots with wash-leather kneecaps. 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 245 In frosty weather the wearing of wash-leather socks both by night and day is an advantage. 1900 J. Hutchinson Archives Surg. XI. 4 Large patches of xanthelasma palpebrarum of the ordinary wash-leather type. 1907 J. A. Hodges Elem. Photogr. (ed. 6) 25 The lens being placed in a wash-leather bag. |