Tanning

One word on this list changes its meaning with its gender. In the tannery der Narben, masculine, is the grain: the outer face of the hide, where the hair grew, with the pattern of pores that tells a buyer whether it came from cattle, goat or pig. Die Narbe, feminine, is a scar. The trap is in the plural, because both come out as die Narben, and then only the context says which is meant. The singular is never in doubt — im Narben against in der Narbe — and the trade leans on compounds to stay clear of the plural: die Narbenseite, das Vollnarbenleder, der Narbenfehler. And the two words meet more often than you would expect, since a scar the animal carried shows on the grain and lowers the grade of the whole hide: Die Narbe sitzt mitten im Narben. The rest of the list follows the hide from the salt to the finish.