efflower

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French effleurer.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ĕflouərʹ, IPA^(key): /ɛˈflaʊɚ/

Verb

efflower (third-person singular simple present efflowers, present participle efflowering, simple past and past participle efflowered)

1. (rare) To graze; (leatherworking) to remove the outer surface of (a skin) with a knife.
   • 1864, Andrew Ure, “A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines”, in Leather, volume II:

     Chamois or Shamoy leather.—The skins are first washed, limed, fleeced, and branned as above described. They are next efflowered, that is, deprived of their epidermis by a concave knife, blunt in its middle part, upon the convex horse-beam.

   • 1913, John Galen Howard, “From olive groves of academe”, in University of California Chronicle, page 101:

     In the pregnant bounds / Of delicatest breath, that but efflowers the ear / And lapses into nothingness[.]

   • 1972, Sophia Frances Ann Caulfeild, Blanche C. Saward, Encyclopedia of Victorian Needlework: Dictionary of Needlework, page 64:

     Chamois leather—The skin of the Alpine goat of that name, which has been “efflowered” or deprived of the epidermis.

Related terms

• effleurage

Translations

leatherworking: remove an outer surface with a knife — see graze

Anagrams

• freeflow