Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c18.12

v1.c18.12

¹ A ‘skin or hyde.’ Millar (chap. v. p. 85) defines a ‘hyde of land,’ the quantity which can be cultivated by a single plough. A *charsa*, ‘skin or hyde’ of land, is as much as one man can water; and what one can water is equal to what one plough can cultivate. If irrigation ever had existence by the founders of the system, we may suppose this the meaning of the term which designated a knight’s fee. It may have gone westward with emigration. [The English ‘hide’ : “ the amount considered adequate for the support of one free family with its dependants : at an early date defined as being as much land as could be tilled by one plough in a year,” has no connexion with ‘hide,’ ‘a skin.’ It is O.E. *híd*, from *híw*, *híg*, ‘household.’ ‘Hide,’ ‘a skin,’ is O.E. *hýd* (*New English Dict.* ssv.).]