Leather is treated animal skin which is used for making shoes, clothes, bags, and furniture. He wore a leather jacket and dark trousers. an impressive range of upholstered furniture, in a choice of fabrics and leathers. Animal skins and hides treated to preserve them and make them suitable for use. Tanning converts the otherwise perishable skin to a stable and nondecaying material. Though the skins of such diverse animals as ostrich, lizard, eel, and kangaroo have been used, the more common leathers come from cattle, including calf and ox; sheep and lamb; goat and kid; horse, mule, and zebra; buffalo; pig and hog; and seal, walrus, whale, and alligator. Leather making is an ancient art that has been practiced for more than 7,000 years. See also parchment
For the avoidance of all ambiguities and doubts, which may and do grow upon the definition and interpretation of this word leather, it is enacted, and declared by these presents, that the hides and skins of ox, steer, bull, cow, calf, deer, red and fallow, goats and sheep being tanned or tawed, and every salt hide is, shall be, and ever hath been reputed and taken for leather
a generic term for animal skin, more usually identified by the type of leather such as calf, morocco, etc
Has subcategories, including genuine (top-grain or full grain leather from the outermost layer of hide); splits (underlayers split off from the top grain, usually having a surface treatment to simulate color and grain of geniune leather), and processed leather (one type of skin or hide made to resemble another type usually called "bonded leather" or "laminated leather")
The skin of an animal, or some part of such skin, tanned, tawed, or otherwise dressed for use; also, dressed hides, collectively