leather

leather skin or hide of animals, cured by tanning to prevent decay and to impart flexibility and toughness. Prehistoric and primitive peoples preserved pelts with grease and smoke and used them chiefly for shoes, garments, coverings, tents, and containers. Today pelts are prepared for tanning by dehairing, usually with lime, followed by fleshing and cleaning. After tanning, leather is generally treated with fats to assure pliability. The practice of shaving leather to the required thickness was abandoned early in the 18th cent. after the invention of a machine that split the tanned leather into a flesh layer and a grain (hair-side) layer; skivers are thin, soft grains used for linings and for covering firm surfaces. Characteristic grains may be brought out by rubbing, as in morocco leather (goatskin), or may be imitated by embossing. Finishes include glazing, a high glaze being achieved by rolling with glass cylinders; coloring with stains or dyes; enameling or lacquering as for patent leather; and sueding, buffing with emery or carborundum wheels to raise a nap, usually on the flesh side. Russia leather, originally vegetable-tanned calfskin dressed with birch oil that imparted a characteristic odor and often dyed red with brazilwood, is a term now covering a number of variants. Rawhide is similar to parchment and is untanned. Cordovan, or Spanish, leather, a soft, colored leather made at Córdoba during the Middle Ages and often richly modeled and gilded, is imitated for wall coverings, panels, and screens. Leather is much used in bookbinding . Artificial leather, made since about 1850, was originally a strong fabric coated with a rubber composition or with a synthetic substance such as pyroxylin. Since World War II, materials made from vinyl polymers have far outstripped the earlier artificial leathers in commercial importance.

leather hell for leather at breakneck speed (originally with reference to riding on horseback).
leather or prunella something to which one is completely indifferent, the type of something that is of no importance. The term derives from a misinterpretation of Alexander Pope's lines in his Essay on Man, ‘Worth makes the Man, and want of it the Fellow; The rest, is all but Leather or Prunella.’

In the poem, a distinction is being drawn between the trade of a cobbler (leather) and the profession of a clergyman (prunella as the material from which a clerical gown is made). The phrase was however taken to denote something of no value.
there is nothing like leather proverbial saying, late 17th century, referring the toughness and durability of leather. The saying comes from one of Aesop's fables, in which a leatherworker contributed this opinion to a discussion on how to fortify a city.
tough as leather very tough (often figuratively, implying great stamina).

leath·er / ˈle[voicedth]ər/ • n. 1. a material made from the skin of an animal by tanning or a similar process: [as adj.] a leather jacket. 2. a thing made of leather, in particular: ∎  a piece of leather as a polishing cloth. ∎  short for stirrup leather. ∎  (leathers) leather clothes, esp. those worn by a motorcyclist. • adj. inf. of, relating to, or catering to people who wear leather clothing and accessories as a sign of rough masculinity, esp. homosexuals who practice sadomasochistic sex: leather bar leather queen. • v. [tr.] 1. [usu. as adj.] (leathered) cover with leather: dancers in leathered costumes. 2. beat or thrash (someone): he caught me and leathered me black and blue [as n.] (leathering) go, before you get a leathering.