section_path: Etymology
section_name: Etymology
paragraph_text: Etymology
  
  The word skin originally only referred to dressed and tanned animal hide and the usual word for human skin was hide.Skin is a borrowing from Old Norse skinn "animal hide, fur", ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *sek-, meaning "to cut" (probably a reference to the fact that in those times animal hide was commonly cut off to be used as garment).