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cavvy | 01:44 Mon 05th Feb 2007 | Phrases & Sayings
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niether hide nor hair
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Neither hide (meaning 'skin') nor hair has been around as a phrase since the 1300s to mean 'wholly/entirely'. So, if someone says, "I've seen neither hide nor hair of him", he just means he hasn't seen anything of that person at all.
I think I once heard it was an old hunting term. Animals with hide used to provide clothing, and those with hair, food. When I hunter had had a fruitless quest, he would say he "hadn't seen hide nor hair".
Hunters may well, of course, have used the phrase later in that way, but the earliest recorded use of it was actually to children, not animals.

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