gold-beater’s skin
n.— «As a conservator, if we saw a tear like this, we’d look to parchment repair, a very similar organic material.…They use something called gold-beater’s skin—the lining of a cow’s stomach—very, very thin membrane, very strong.» —“A Strong Stomach For Art Conservation” by Kenneth Baker San Francisco Chronicle (California) Mar. 2, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Amy from Charlotte, North Carolina, reports a dispute arose when visiting her brother’s family. Is a large container for storing sugar properly called a can or a canister? The answer involves prototype theory, which in cognitive linguistics and...
If you take your finger and run it down your breastbone, and the end, there’s a little pit. In the 15th century, that little hollow just after the bone was called the heartspoon. This indentation is also called the pit of the stomach, or epigastric...
This is standard English, and can be found in the American Heritage dictionary.
Gold-beater’s skin is used in the manufacture of gold leaf — you place a thin sheet of gold between two layers of this membrane, then hammer it until it’s thinner than paper.