hide

Less common meanings

4. 4
   own safetynouncolloquialmetonymicallyUSuncountable

   One's own life or personal safety, especially when it is at risk.

   The witness lied to the police to save his own hide.

   When the deal collapsed, every partner scrambled to protect their own hide.

   UsageMostly in a few set phrases with a possessive, often with own: save your own hide, protect their own hide.

   Similarskin, neck, life

   Note

   Here the skin stands for the person inside it. In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957), Francisco d'Anconia stretches the pattern, saying a scoffer ought to "learn the difference on his own hide." A whip is close at hand in that speech, so the literal skin shows through. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged, first published in 1957. varshavskycollection.com
   • Francisco d'Anconia is the speaker, and the quoted words are exact. atlassociety.org
5. 5
   nounUKcountable

   A screened shelter where people can stay out of sight while watching, photographing or hunting wildlife.

   Photographers waited in the hide for hours to catch the herons at dawn.

   A new hide overlooking the wetland opened to visitors this spring.

   UsageYou sit in a hide or watch from it, as in a wildlife hide. American English most often calls it a blind.

   Similarblind

   Note

   A wildlife watcher's word, mainly British, for a screened shelter where people sit unseen. The AA Book of British Villages (1980) promises that hares, deer, geese and herons "can be discreetly observed from the hides." Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • The book says that hares, deer, geese and herons can be discreetly observed from hides, using the quoted wording. en.wiktionary.org
6. 6
   human skinnouncolloquial

   A person's skin, spoken of humorously or with contempt as if it were an animal's.

   The beggar's hide was cracked and weathered from years on the road.

   O tiger's heart, wrapped in a woman's hide!

   c. 1591, William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt,”

   Note

   Shakespeare shows the scornful use at full strength in The Third Part of Henry the Sixt: "O tiger's heart, wrapped in a woman's hide!" Calling a woman's skin a hide turns her into a beast. As a neutral word for human skin it is obsolete. Used of a person today, it is an insult, and its living, half-joking descendant is the hide one tries to save. Source

   Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

   • The quoted line occurs in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3; York speaks it to Queen Margaret. folger.edu
   • The animal comparison forms part of York's contemptuous attack on Margaret. folger.edu
7. 7
   verbtransitive

   Of a thing: to be placed before or over someone or something in a way that keeps it out of sight.

   The new apartment towers hide the river from most of the neighborhood.

   A thick curtain of ivy hid the old doorway from passersby.

   UsageHide something from someone or from view; the passive is common: hidden by trees, hidden from the road.

   Similarblock, screen, conceal, obscure, cover

   Oppositereveal, expose

   Note

   No one has to mean it here: towers, ivy or a hill do the hiding simply by being in the way, which sets it apart from the deliberate concealing. It stays close to the old root, which meant "to cover". Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • Hide ultimately derives from a root meaning “to cover”. lrc.la.utexas.edu
8. 8
   noun

   A historical unit of land area and tax assessment, varying in size but originally reckoned as enough land to support one household and its dependents.

   The exact size of hides varied with soil quality, but each one generally encompassed 24 to 26 hectares.

   2016, Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire
9. 9
   verb

   To beat or flog, especially with a whip made of leather or rawhide.

   He ran last week, and he was hided, and he was out on the day before yesterday, and here he is once more, and he knows he's got to run and to be hided again.

   1891, Robert Weir, J. Moray Brown