Whittaw

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Soft white leather that has been dressed with alum and salt rather than tanned with bark or other tannins
2. A pale, supple leather produced by the old alum-based process of tawing skins instead of tanning them
3. Dressed hide, typically from sheep, goat or deer, made pliable and white through an alum and salt treatment

Etymology: "Whittaw" is a term for leather that has been tanned using alum and salt rather than the bark or oak galls used for ordinary tanning, which leaves it pale and soft. The word is simply a compound of "white" and "taw," the older English word for tawing, the process of preparing hides with alum. Its first element describes the resulting colour, so the name records both the method and the appearance of the finished leather.