whit leather

9.9

Leather treated with salt or alum becomes pale, soft and flexible

noun

Archaic

: cuero blanco

The gloves were made of fine whit leather, prized for its softness.

Examples

She carefully cleaned the old whit leather saddle to preserve its quality.
Artisans often used whit leather in bookbinding during the medieval period.
The artisan used whit leather to craft beautiful bags.
Do you prefer whit leather or darker materials?
Artisans often used whit leather in bookbinding during the medieval period.
She carefully cleaned the old whit leather saddle to preserve its quality.
The gloves were made of fine whit leather, prized for its softness.

Synonyms

white leather

vswhit leather

2 3.4

Leather that is pale or white after a special treatment

is specifically tanned using alum or salt rather than generally treated

Surface Forms

whit leather singular

whit leathers plural

Morphology

whit + leather

The compound clearly names a kind of leather, so the head noun 'leather' is transparent, and a learner might infer 'whit' relates to pale/white. However, 'whit' is archaic/obscure here and the specific tanning process and resulting properties (alum/salt tanning giving flexibility) are not recoverable from the surface form alone, so the full technical sense is not fully predictable to a B1 learner.

Etymology

The noun whit leather comes from whit, an old word for 'white', and leather, meaning animal skin. Tanners treated the skin with alum or salt to make it pale and soft, so the name points to a pale, flexible kind of leather.