Definition of "rind"

Sweetest nut hath sourest rind.

c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene ii]

Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind / With all thy charms, although this corporal rind / Thou hast immanacled.

1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903,

"I'm hanged if I know how you've got the immortal rind to come at me with a yarn like this."

1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1965, page 218

Taking the money from a man when he's got his pants down. What are you, a doctor or a tailor's tout? Thirty bucks! If I figured you'd have the rind to touch me that much I'd have lashed them up with a pair of braces!

1939, Roy Forster, Joyous Deliverance, London: Thornton Butterworth, p. 262

April 9, 1940. Then one of our RAF customers had the rind to suggest that ‘you women ought to give up smoking for the duration you know’. This, when they have the alternative of smoking pipes which is not open to us, [...]

1940, Amy Helen Bell (ed.), London Was Ours: Diaries and Memoirs of the London Blitz, 1940-1941, published 2002, Kingston, Ontario: Queen's University, p. 99

“Oh?” she said. “So you have decided to revise my guest list for me? You have the nerve, the – the –” I saw she needed helping out. “Audacity,” I said, throwing her the line. “The audacity to dictate to me who I shall have in my house.” It should have been “whom”, but I let it go. “You have the –” “Crust.” “– the immortal rind,” she amended, and I had to admit it was stronger, “to tell me whom” – she got it right that time – “I may entertain at Brinkley Court and who” – wrong again – “I may not.”

1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVIII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins

[About a football match.] Come the second half and the Trinidadians and Tobagans had the immortal rind to make excursions into the England half, the spectacle of which was deeply offensive to those whose memories extend to those happy days before 1962, when independence was unwisely conferred on this archipelago. Back in those days, a game like this would have presented little anxiety. Any goals scored by the Trinidadians, or Tobagans for that matter, would have been instantly become the property of the Crown and therefore added to England's tally. Glad times – 22 men working together for a common aim. However, such is the insolence of the modern age that these dark fellows dared approach the England penalty box, forelocks untugged, as if demanding instant entry to the Garrick club without having been put up by existing members.

2010, David Stubbs, Send Them Victorious: England's Path to Glory 2006-2010, O Books (Zero Books), p. 12