skin

Etymology

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