Qenya
helma
noun. skin, fell, skin, fell, *hide
halma
noun. skin, fell
Beware, older languages below! The languages below were invented during Tolkien's earlier period and should be used with caution. Remember to never, ever mix words from different languages!
A noun in The Etymologies of the 1930s glossed “skin, fell” derived from the root ᴹ√SKEL (Ety/SKEL). It replaced ᴹQ. halma which was derived from the original form of the root {ᴹ√SKAL >>} ᴹ√SKEL (EtyAC/SKEL). Here “fell” is used in its archaic English sense of “an animal’s skin including its hair”, hence “✱hide”.
Conceptual Development: A word ᴱQ. fara “fur, fell” appeared in Early Noldorin Word-lists of the 1920s from primitive ᴱ✶swada, with sw > f as it did in Early Qenya of the 1910s and 20s (PE12/19); in the phonetic developments of later Quenya, sw > hw (PE19/79). Earliest still Tolkien had ᴱQ. vóre “fur” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s under the early root ᴱ√VŌRI of the same meaning (QL/102).