Desquamable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Able to shed or peel off the outer layers of skin, scales, or similar surfaces
2. Describes a surface or material that can naturally lose its external layers by peeling
3. Characterizes something that is prone to flaking or sloughing off its outer covering

Etymology: Desquamable comes from the Latin "desquamare," meaning "to scrape off scales," built from "de-" (off, away) and "squama" (scale, as on a fish or a snake). The root survives in English through the medical and biological term "desquamation," the shedding of skin in thin layers, which is why the adjective is most often heard in dermatology and zoology. "Squama" is also the source of "squamous," used for scaly or flake-like tissue. The image behind the word is a literal one: a fish losing its scales when handled roughly, or skin peeling after sunburn. Writers of scientific description adopted the Latin-derived family of words to name these processes precisely, and the adjective simply describes something that can be expected to shed in this way.

Synonyms: peelable, scalable, flakeable, sheddable, exfoliable

Antonyms: nonpeelable, nonscalable, nonflakeable, nonexfoliable, non-sheddable