A process in leather tanning where animal skins are treated with enzymes to soften and prepare them for dyeing.
From Middle English 'baten,' possibly from 'beat,' or from a Scandinavian source. In leather-making, it refers to chemical treatment that removes lime and opens the fiber structure.
Bating is one of those ancient crafts that modern chemistry explained—tanneries discovered centuries ago that bird poop (literally) softened leather better than anything else, because of the enzymes in it; now we use purified enzymes instead, but the basic principle is the same.
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