leathern en · ADJ
Etymology
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”).
Meanings
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(dated, not-comparable) Made of leather.
Except for his leathern harness, covered thick with jewels and metal, […]
1913 December – 1914 March, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “With the Yellow Men”, in The Warlord of Mars, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., published September 1919, →OCLC, page 164: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.
1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, “‘Those were the Real Conquests’”, in The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC, page 263: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 piggins, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from.
1823, Elia [pseudonym; Charles Lamb], “Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago”, in Elia. Essays which have Appeared under that Signature in The London Magazine, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 28:[A] street door was torn open to admit four boys, with their leathern straps of books over their shoulders.
1873, Charlotte M[ary] Yonge, “The Birth-day Gift”, in The Pillars of the House; or, Under Wode, under Rode. […], volume I, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 1:For the doing of this matter, he ordered a great many leathern bottles and sacks to be got together; […]
1806 [c. 20 BCE], Robert Arrol, transl., Cornelii Neoptis Vitæ Excellentium Imperatorum, translation of De viris illustribus by Cornelius Nepos: