tanned

1. 1
   adjective

   Having skin darkened by exposure to the sun.

   The hikers came back tanned after two weeks on the trail.

   Her face was deeply tanned from years of sailing offshore.

   Similarsuntanned, bronzed, brown, tan

   Oppositepale, pasty

   Note

   Here the participle has settled into a true adjective. It grades as more tanned and most tanned, and it takes intensifiers, as in very tanned or deeply tanned. Grading is the quickest way to tell it from the verb form. The hikers were tanned describes a state. The hikers were tanned by the sun reports something that happened to them.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of tan.

   Generations of craftsmen tanned leather using oak bark.

   The leather had been tanned and dyed before it reached the workshop.

   Note

   One spelling carries every verb sense of tan, so context decides: skin tanned on the beach, hides tanned in the yard, and, informally, a backside tanned with a spanking. In Multicultural London English slang it can even mean shot. The form serves the simple past and, after have or be, the perfect and the passive. Note the doubled n before -ed.

3. 3
   adjective

   Made into leather by treatment with tannic acid rather than by abrasion.

   The workshop sold belts and wallets made of tanned cowhide.

   Properly tanned leather resists rot for decades.

   Oppositeraw, untanned

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