SHAGREEN • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Shagreen

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

noun

Shagreen n.

A kind of untanned leather prepared in Russia and the East, from the skins of horses, asses, and camels, and grained so as to be covered with small round granulations. This characteristic surface is produced by pressing small seeds into the grain or hair side when moist, and afterward, when dry, scraping off the roughness left between them, and then, by soaking, causing the portions of the skin which had been compressed or indented by the seeds to swell up into relief. It is used for covering small cases and boxes.

The skin of various small sharks and other fishes when having small, rough, bony scales. The dogfishes of the genus Scyllium furnish a large part of that used in the arts.

See images of 'Shagreen'

Etymology of 'Shagreen'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Shagreen" Quotes from Famous Books

... busy over a shagreen jewel case filled with hideous garnet and gilt breast-pins and bracelets of the sixties, Margot leaned from the ...

— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... Madeleine, after authoritatively closing the curtains, kissed her sister, and was about to commence immediate disrobing, when she caught sight of the shagreen-covered book, lying open ...

— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... another I carried his portmanteaus to a loft in the top of the house which we kept locked; went to my own room for my keys, and, returning to the loft, had the gratification to find two that fitted pretty well. In one of the portmanteaus there was a shagreen letter-case, which I cut open with my knife; and thenceforth (so far as any credit went) the man was at my mercy. Here was a vast deal of gallant correspondence, chiefly of his Paris days; and, what was more to the purpose, here were the copies of his own reports to the English Secretary, ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a hobby; call it what you like. I look upon it as a debt, sir, due to the memory of my late wife. An admirable woman, sir, and by name Artemisia; which, I have sometimes thought, may partially account for it. Allow me, gentlemen." He drew a small shagreen case from his breast-pocket, opened ...

— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine