Also calf’s-, calves-, calve-. The skin or hide of a calf; a superior kind of leather made from this, and used in bookbinding, shoemaking, etc. More rarely = vellum.
1590. Shaks., Com. Err., IV. iii. 18. Hee that goes in the calues-skin, that was kil’d for the Prodigall. Ibid. (1595), John, III. i. 129. Hang a Calues skin on those recreant limbes!
1604. in Shaks. C. Praise, 60. Master Bursebell the calves-skin scrivener.
1704. Swift, T. Tub, V. 75. Copies, well-bound in calf-skin.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 74. 990 calve-skins [exported in 1 yr. from Petersburg].
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., Courage, 207. Cowardice shuts the eyes till the sky is not larger than a calf-skin.
† b. A purse, etc., made of calf-skin. Obs.
1618. Dekker, Owles Almanacke, 53. This puts … coyne into the Painters calueskinne.
† c. attrib.
1606. Wily Begvilde, Prol. (N.). His Calue skin iests from hence are cleane exil’d.
1785. Grose, Class. Dict. Vulg. Tongue Calf-skin fiddle, a drum.
