Skin

How to spell skin

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce skin

What does skin mean?

1. nounThe thin outer layer of tissue covering the body of a person or animal.
2. nounA thin layer or film forming the outer surface of a fruit, liquid, or similar object.
3. verbTo strip or graze the outer covering from something.

Skin in a sentence

• noun

  The lotion left her skin feeling soft and hydrated.

• noun

  A thick skin had formed on top of the cooling custard.

• verb

  The cook showed the apprentice how to skin a tomato after blanching it.

• noun

  Too much sun can damage the skin over time.

• noun

  She peeled the skin off the potato before boiling it.

• verb

  He fell on the gravel and managed to skin his knee.

Where does skin come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Skin comes from the Old Norse word skinn, which meant the hide or pelt of an animal. Norse settlers brought it into English during the Viking age, and over the medieval period it gradually pushed aside the older native English words 'hide' and 'fell' as the everyday term for the outer covering of the body. The original sense was firmly about stripped animal hides, but by the 1300s it was being applied to the living human and animal surface as well. From there the meaning broadened to almost any thin outer layer, such as the skin on heated milk or the casing of a fruit. The spelling has stayed remarkably plain and phonetic, which is why this short word causes very few problems for modern writers.

How the word is built

• skin (single root, from Old Norse skinn: animal hide)