[f. FISH sb.1]
1. The skin of a fish.
1651. J. Hall, Grounds of Monarchy, II. 31. Hanging Fish-skins about the wals of the Chamber, and making one speak through a trunk, and call them to Warre.
1759. Colebrooke, in Phil. Trans., LI. 43. A piece of old wainscoat … was smoothed with a fish-skin.
1859. Lowell, Biglow Papers, Gloss., Fish-skin, used in New England to clarify coffee.
2. attrib. and Comb.: fish-skin disease (also shortened fish-skin), ichthyosis; fish-skin grain, grain (in leather) resembling the skin of a fish.
1703. Lond. Gaz., No. 3896/4. He … had about him a Fish skin Plaister-Box with Sliver Instruments.
1814. T. Bateman, Cutaneous Dis. (ed. 3), 49. The ICHTHYOSIS, or fish-skin disease, is characterized by a thickened, hard, rough, and in some cases almost horny texture of the integuments of the body.
1834. Good, Study Med. (ed. 4), IV. 463. Lepidosis Ichthyiasis. Fish-skin.
1879. Eng. Mech., 11 Feb., 534/2. Steel rollers, for making the ‘fish skin’ grain.
