hidebound: [16] The term hidebound was originally applied to cattle so emaciated that their skin (or hide) was dry and stiff and clung closely to their bones. The idea of being trapped immovably inside one’s skin had led by the early 17th century to the meaning we are most familiar with today: ‘set immovably in one’s opinions, narrow-minded’.
1550s, from hide (n.1) + past tense of bind (v.). Original reference is to emaciated cattle with skin sticking closely to backbones and ribs; metaphoric sense of "restricted by narrow attitudes" is first recorded c. 1600.
