rawhide
Americannoun
-
untanned skin of cattle or other animals.
-
a rope or whip made of rawhide.
verb (used with object)
noun
-
untanned hide
-
a whip or rope made of strips cut from such a hide
Etymology
Origin of rawhide
Explanation
Rawhide is dried animal skin that hasn't been treated and turned into leather. Lampshades and drum heads are sometimes made from rawhide, and so are those leathery chews you give your dog to gnaw on. To turn an animal hide into something strong and pliant (like boot laces, upholstery, or shoes), it has to be tanned, processed with chemicals that strengthen the material. Rawhide, on the other hand, is raw, or "in its natural state." This means it's more delicate and generally less useful than finished leather. The fact that rawhide stretches and softens when wet makes it ideal for drum heads. Dogs love to chew on rawhide, though many vets discourage it.
Vocabulary lists containing rawhide
Wolf Brother
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Vocabulary from Readings 5, Unit 1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
However, during the FBI tests in 2022 at the agency’s lab in Quantico, Va., forensic analysts used a rawhide mallet to strike the gun so hard that components of the gun fractured.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 24, 2024
Metal ring bits adopted from the Spanish caused distinctive fractures in an animal’s teeth and palate; rawhide bridles developed by Native people wore telltale grooves in the lower jaw.
From Science Magazine ● Mar. 29, 2023
Or if the buckskin has been washed for five days in a row, it turns into rawhide.
From Salon ● Aug. 31, 2022
The dog even had her own shelf, so each pit stop meant she got treats or a rawhide and, if it was her mealtime, kibble.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 23, 2021
Horace rested his elbow on his saddle horn and stirred a fly from his horse’s shoulder with his rawhide quirt.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
"Ollie" Burke kidded and rawhided them into battle shape, turned his engines at 31 knots, dressed each ship with a new in-signe: the "Little Beaver," a character from Artist Fred Harman's comic strip Red Ryder.
From Time Magazine Archive
Labor The two big-bodied, grim-faced men sat in their green-walled hotel suites in Washington and listened as the President rawhided them over the radio.
From Time Magazine Archive
For 15 minutes she rawhided the critic in German.
From Time Magazine Archive
Krug remained silent; he suffered Lewis's rawhiding without complaint.
From Time Magazine Archive
Then, in a flood of intemperate language unmatched since his rawhiding of the striking railroad workers in 1946,* the President launched into an angry dressing-down of the whole steel industry.
From Time Magazine Archive
Seldom had a top-rank businessman given business such a rawhiding.
From Time Magazine Archive
But they also knew him as a rawhiding commander who knew no friends.
From Time Magazine Archive
But here are the facts, and he knows it: for four years he's been rawhiding me at every chance with his practical jokes.
From Double Trouble Or, Every Hero His Own Villain by Orson Lowell
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
