Clay

Pronunciation

• enPR: klā, IPA: /kleɪ/
• Rhymes: -eɪ

Origin

From Middle English clay, cley, from Old English clǣġ ("clay"), from Proto-Germanic *klajjaz ("clay"), from Proto-Indo-European *gley- ("to glue, paste, stick together").

Krueger 1982; Merriam-Webster 1974.

Cognate with Dutch klei ("clay"), Low German klei ("clay"), German Klei, Danish klæg ("clay"); compare Ancient Greek γλία, Latin glūs ("glue"), Ukrainian ґлей (, "clay"). Related also to clag, clog.

Full definition of clay

Noun

1. A mineral substance made up of small crystals of silica and alumina, that is ductile when moist; the material of pre-fired ceramics.
• 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, Nobody Chapter 1, Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with (by way of local colour) on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust ….
2. An earth material with ductile qualities.
3. (tennis) A tennis court surface.
   The French Open is played on clay.
4. (biblical) The material of the human body.
• 1611, Old Testament, King James Version, Job 10:8-9:Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about...thou hast made me as the clay.
• 1611, Old Testament, King James Version, Isaiah 64:8:But now, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter; and we are the work of thy hand.
5. (geology) A particle less than 3.9 microns in diameter, following the Wentworth scale.
6. (firearms, informal) A clay pigeon.

Antonyms

• (material of the human body) soul, spirit

Hyponyms

• kaolin, kaoline
• ball clay
• fire clay
• potter's clay

Derived terms

• ball clay
• claying
• clayen
• clayey
• claymation
• clay pigeon
• fire clay
• modelling clay
• potter's clay

Verb

1. (transitive) To add clay to, to spread clay onto.
2. (transitive, of sugar) To purify using clay.
• 1776, Adam Smith, , Book IV, Chapter 7: Of Colonies, Part 2: Causes of Prosperity of New Colonies,They amounted, therefore, to a prohibition, at first of claying or refining sugar for any foreign market, and at present of claying or refining it for the market, which takes off, perhaps, more than nine-tenths of the whole produce.
• 1809, Jonathan Williams, On the Process of Claying Sugar, in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 6.
• 1985, Stuart B. Schwartz, Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835, clays|claying|clayed+sugar%22&hl=en&ei=8sroTbfpEJCyuAOkwvS8Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&sqi=2&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22clay|clays|claying|clayed%20sugar%22&f=false page 200,The Portuguese had mastered the technique of claying sugar, and other European nations tried to learn the secrets from them.

Anagrams

• acyl, lacy, Lacy