shagreen

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The rough hide of a shark or ray, covered with numerous bony denticles and used as an abrasive and as leather.
2. n. An untanned leather with a granular surface that is often dyed green.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A kind of leather with a granular surface, prepared without tanning from the skin of the horse, ass, and camel, and sometimes the shark, sea-otter, and seal. Its granular appearance is produced by embedding in the skin, while soft, the seeds of a species of Chenopodium, and afterward shaving down the surface, and then, by soaking, causing the parts of the skin which had been indented by the seeds to swell up into relief. It is dyed with the green produced by the action of sal ammoniac on copper filings. Specifically called Orienatal shagreen, having been originally and most extensively produced in Eastern countries.
2. n. Specifically, the skin of a shark or some related selachian, which is roughened with calcified papillæ (placoid scales), making the surface harsh and rasping. See cut under scale, and compare sephen.
3. n. An imitation of genuine shagreen, made by passing raw hide in a moist state through rollers in contact with a roughened copper plate.
4. n. Chagrin. See chagrin.
5. Made of the leather called shagreen.

Wiktionary

1. n. An untanned leather, often dyed green; originally made from horse skin, today mostly made from the skin of a shark or ray.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. obsolete To chagrin.
2. n. A kind of untanned leather prepared in Russia and the East, from the skins of horses, asses, and camels, and grained so as to be covered with small round granulations. This characteristic surface is produced by pressing small seeds into the grain or hair side when moist, and afterward, when dry, scraping off the roughness left between them, and then, by soaking, causing the portions of the skin which had been compressed or indented by the seeds to swell up into relief. It is used for covering small cases and boxes.
3. n. The skin of various small sharks and other fishes when having small, rough, bony scales. The dogfishes of the genus Scyllium furnish a large part of that used in the arts.
4. adj. Made or covered with the leather called shagreen.
5. adj. (Zoöl.) Covered with rough scales or points like those on shagreen.