skin

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the natural outer layer that covers the body of a person or animal

   After a day at the beach, her skin was red from the sun.

2. 2
   noun

   the thin outer layer or covering of something

   You should remove the skin of the apple before cooking it.

3. 3
   noun

   a thin solid layer that forms on the surface of a liquid

   A skin had formed on top of the paint in the open can.

4. 4
   verb

   to hurt the surface of part of your body by scraping it

   I skinned my knee when I fell off my bike.

From Middle English skyn, skinn, from Old English scinn, from Old Norse skinn (“animal hide”), from Proto-Germanic *skinþą, from Proto-Indo-European *sken- (“to split off”), nasal variant of *skeh₁i-d- (“to cut”). Partially displaced native Old English hȳd (“skin, hide”), from which derives hide. Cognate with Dutch schinde (“bark”), dialectal German Schinde (“fruit peel”); also Breton skant (“scales”), Old Irish cenn (“covering, shell”), Irish scáin (“to tear, burst”), Latin scindō (“to split, divide”), Sanskrit छिनत्ति (chinátti, “to split”).

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