cuir (French)

Where does "cuir" come from?

French cuir is inherited directly from Latin corium, which meant “animal skin, hide, leather,” so the sense stayed very close as it became the ordinary French word for “leather.” Latin corium itself goes back to Proto-Italic *korjom and ultimately to Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker-, meaning “to cut off” or “separate,” linking leather to the idea of skin being cut from the body.

Full etymology tree

• cuir (French), 'leather'
  • inherited from corium (Latin), 'animal skin; hide, fell; leather'
    • inherited from *korjom (Proto-Italic)
      • derived from *(s)ker- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to cut off, sever'

Ancestors

• corium (Latin)

Updated March 2026

More words starting with C

Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris