Suede is leather that has been treated so the surface is soft and slightly fuzzy instead of smooth and shiny. Run your hand over it and it feels like the skin of a peach, and the colour seems to change direction as you stroke it. Shoes, jackets, bags and sofa covers are often made of it. It is an uncountable noun — "a piece of suede", never "a suede" — and it is very often used in front of another noun, like an adjective: suede boots, a suede jacket. English speakers say it "swayd", one syllable, which catches learners out because the spelling looks French and long. The big practical fact about suede is that it hates water and marks easily, so people talk about it with a little worry: you brush it, you spray it, you do not wash it. Cheaper things are often made of faux suede or microsuede, which is cloth pretending to be suede.