[a. mod.L. epidermis, a. Gr. ἐπιδερμίς, f. ἐπί upon + δέρμα skin.]
1. Anat. The outer (non-vascular) layer of the skin of animals; the cuticle or scarf-skin.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 297. They never infect, but by such a Touch … as cometh within the Epidermis.
1650. Bulwer, Anthropomet., 156. They remain like peel’d Ewes, until their Faces have recovered a new Epidermis.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1862), I. xi. 215/2. The blackness lay in the epidermis, or scarf-skin.
1813. Sir H. Davy, Agric. Chem. (1814), 57. The epidermis is not vascular, and it merely defends the interior parts from injury.
1842. Barham, Ingol. Leg., St. Medard. It fail’d … to raise on the tough epidermis a lump or bump!
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, Wks. (Bohn), II. 311. A squint, a pug-nose, mats of hair, the pigment of the epidermis, betray character.
transf. 1850. Leitch, trans. C. O. Müller’s Anc. Art, § 310. 353. The epidermis of the ancient statues is formed of the smearing with wax.
1819. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1859), I. 260/2. The epidermis of the country has hardly as yet been scratched.
1877. Huxley, Anat. Inv. Anim., i. 55. From the epidermis, all cuticular and cellular exoskeletal parts, and all the integumentary glands are developed.
2. Conch., The outer animal integument of a shell.
1755. Gentl. Mag., XXV. 32/1. Epidermis, the marine covering, or incrustation, which is taken off to shew the native beauty of the shell.
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., II. 110. Shell … with a wrinkled brown or chestnut epidermis, and glossy white within.
1858. Geikie, Hist. Boulder, v. 91. The perfect shell … displayed its russet epidermis.
3. Bot. ‘The true skin of a plant below the cuticle’ (Treas. Bot.).
1813. Sir H. Davy, Agric. Chem. (1814), 178. Wheat, oats, and many of the hollow grasses, have an epidermis principally of siliceous earth.
1880. Gray, Struct. Bot., iii. § iv. 89.
1870. Bentley, Bot., 37. Tabular parenchyma is found in the epidermis.
