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shagreen (shah-GREEN) - n., an untanned leather with a granular surface originally prepared from the hide of a horse but now more often from a shark or ray; the rough skin of certain sharks, used as an abrasive. adj., resembling, covered with, or made of shagreen.
Often dyed pale green because of the name, rather than the name coming from the color. Originally, the texture was created by pressing small seeds into the wet hide. It's unclear whether this was done to imitate the texture of sharkskin or the resemblance lead to replacing it with same. Adopted in 1677 from French chagrin, meaning the leather (the texture lead to a metaphoric extension of a feeling of anxiety/vexation/embarrassment, which was later readopted into English as chagrin), likely (though this is disputed) from Turkish sağrι, rump, the part of the horse where the hide was taken.
---L.
Often dyed pale green because of the name, rather than the name coming from the color. Originally, the texture was created by pressing small seeds into the wet hide. It's unclear whether this was done to imitate the texture of sharkskin or the resemblance lead to replacing it with same. Adopted in 1677 from French chagrin, meaning the leather (the texture lead to a metaphoric extension of a feeling of anxiety/vexation/embarrassment, which was later readopted into English as chagrin), likely (though this is disputed) from Turkish sağrι, rump, the part of the horse where the hide was taken.
---L.
