Definition of "hide"

The blind man, whom he had not been able to cure with the pomade, had gone back to the hill of Bois-Guillaume, where he told the travellers of the vain attempt of the druggist, to such an extent, that Homais when he went to town hid himself behind the curtains of the "Hirondelle" to avoid meeting him.

1856, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter XI, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.

2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 18

Nonetheless, some insect prey take advantage of clutter by hiding in it. Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.

2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, pages 206–7

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

c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene iv]

The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of money and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide—as I think he will.

1957, Ayn Rand, Francisco d'Anconia's speech in Atlas Shrugged

In the early days of American settlement, hides were built into houses to provide protection from the Indians and to conceal merchandise from the threat of taxation or thievery.

1980, Robert M. Jones, editor, Walls and Ceilings, Time-Life Books, page 125

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, Riding

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, Penguin, published 2017, page 488