TANNING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Tanning

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/tˈænɪŋ/ Listen

noun

Tanning n. The art or process of converting skins into leather. See Tan, v. t., 1.

verb

Tan v. t. (past & past part. tanned; pres. part. tanning)

To convert (the skin of an animal) into leather, as by the usual process of steeping it in an infusion of oak or some other bark, whereby it is impregnated with tannin, or tannic acid (which exists in several species of bark), and is thus rendered firm, durable, and in some degree impervious to water. Note: The essential result in tanning is due to the fact that the tannins form, with gelatins and albuminoids, a series of insoluble compounds which constitute leather. Similar results may be produced by the use of other reagents in place of tannin, as alum, and some acids or chlorides, which are employed in certain processes of tanning.

To make brown; to imbrown, as by exposure to the rays of the sun; as, to tan the skin.

To thrash or beat; to flog; to switch; as, to tan a disobedient child's hide. (Colloq.)

Tan v. i. To get or become tanned.

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Etymology of 'Tanning'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tanning" Quotes from Famous Books

... hitherto unsuspected are accomplished by Schizomycetes, have put the questions of nutrition and fermentation in quite new lights. Apart from numerous fermentation processes such as rotting, the soaking of skins for tanning, the preparation of indigo and of tobacco, hay, ensilage, &c., in all of which bacterial fermentations are concerned, attention may be especially directed to the following evidence of the supreme importance of Schizomycetes in agriculture ...

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... efforts were confined to the fruits of the soil and forest, for she could, if need be, assist her husband in the pursuit or capture of any animal. She was not less clever than he in that animal's subsequent dissection, and was far more expert in its cooking. In the tanning of skins she was an adept. So it chanced that at this time the father and mother frequently left the cave together in the morning, their elder son remaining as protector of the younger inmates. When occasionally he went with his parents, or was allowed ...

— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... the banks was almost wholly of rhizophores, white and red; the wood of the latter burns like coal, and the bark is admirable for tanning. In places their long suckers, growing downwards to the stream, resembled a cordwainer's walk set on end. A bush of yellow-flowered hibiscus clothes the banks that are less level; and, higher still, ...

— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... hide we made war shields, parflesche bags, and saddle blankets. The husbands would tell the wives to take care of the heads. The wives took the brains out of the buffalo skull and mixed them with the largest part of the liver, and after mixing well, used the brains and liver in tanning the hides. Then the wife was told to take out the tripe and skin it, for they used the skin as a bucket with which to carry water when they got home. They had strips of rawhide about three feet long and a quarter ...

— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon

... tribe" hamlet. Here the Eta were devoting themselves to tanning and bamboo work. I was told of other "peculiar people" called Hachia, also of a hawker-beggar class which sells small things of brass or bamboo ...

— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

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