clay

Pluralclays (some meanings)

Formsclays, claying, clayed

1. 1
   pottery materialnoununcountable

   A mineral substance of tiny silica and alumina crystals that can be molded when moist; the material of ceramics before they are fired.

   She set a row of red clay pots along the sunny windowsill.

   The potter kneaded the clay to work out the air bubbles before throwing a bowl.

   Note

   The potter's material has kept its Old English name, clǣġ, from an ancient root meaning "to glue, paste, stick together": a fit for something that clings to wet hands and holds whatever shape it is given. Set before another noun it names what a thing is made of, as in clay pots, and two such phrases have shrunk to the bare word: the smoker's pipe and the shooting target.

2. 2
   sticky soilnoununcountable

   An earthy material that can be molded or drawn out without cracking.

   The spade came up coated in sticky gray clay from the bottom of the ditch.

   Heavy clay lies under most of the valley, so the fields drain slowly after rain.

3. 3
   tennis courtnoununcountable

   In tennis, a playing surface of loose mineral material such as crushed stone, brick, or shale.

   Groundskeepers swept and watered the clay between matches.

   Despite her powerful serve, she has never won a title on clay.

   Note

   Tennis talks about it the way it talks about grass: a match is played on clay, and a player is strong or weak on clay. The French Open is played on it. The loose surface slows the ball and makes it bounce higher than on grass or hard courts, so rallies run longer and patient play from the baseline is rewarded.

4. 4
   human bodynoununcountable

   The material the human body is made of.

   The minister reminded the mourners that they, too, were shaped from the same clay.

   In her hymn, the body is only borrowed clay that the soul will one day leave behind.

   Note

   The picture is a potter at work. In the King James Bible of 1611, "we are the clay, and thou art our potter; and we are the work of thy hand": people are the material, and God is the maker who shapes them. The word keeps that weight in religious and poetic language, where calling the body clay presents a person as something formed by another's hands.

5. 5
   shooting targetnouncolloquialcountable

   A target thrown into the air for shooters to hit, also called a clay pigeon.

   The club opens its range on Sundays for anyone who wants to try shooting clays.

   He missed the first clay but broke the next nine in a row.

   Note

   Despite the name, a clay is not usually fired clay: the standard target is pitch and powdered limestone pressed into the shape of an upturned saucer, which sails flat through the air and shatters when the shot hits it. Shooters count them one by one, so the word takes a plural, and going shooting clays is the everyday way to name the sport.

6. 6
   tiny grainsnoununcountable

   Sediment particles less than 3.9 microns in diameter, as graded on the Wentworth scale.

   The core sample was mostly silt, with only a small fraction of clay.

   Grains finer than silt are classed as clay, whatever minerals they are made of.

   Note

   Here clay is a grain size, not a substance: a speck of quartz counts as clay if it is small enough, while the potter's material is defined by what it is made of. That is why soil and sediment reports give sand, silt and clay as percentages. Other grading schemes draw the line at slightly different sizes, so the scale in use is worth naming.

7. 7
   tobacco pipenouncountable

   A pipe made of clay, used for smoking tobacco.

   He tamped tobacco into the bowl of his clay and struck a match.

   Broken stems from old clays turn up in the river mud at low tide.

8. 8
   add to soilverbtransitive

   To add clay to something, or to spread a layer of clay over it.

   Growers who clay sandy ground find that it keeps moisture much longer.

   The builders clayed the woven hazel walls before the roof went on.

9. 9
   territorynounhumorousuncountable

   Land or territory belonging to a country or region, especially land that is the subject of a territorial claim.

   Someone in the comments insisted that the entire coastline was rightful Venetian clay.

   “Not one inch of our clay will be given up,” he typed, only half joking.

   Similarterritory, soil, land

   Note

   An online joke built on one formula: a place is declared some country's rightful clay, as in "Vilnius is rightful Polish clay." The mock-solemn tone borrows from real quarrels over borders, so the joke lands only where the playfulness is plain. Said in earnest, or about a live dispute, it reads as a genuine territorial claim.

10. 10
    clean sugarverbtransitive

    To purify sugar by treating it with clay.

    On the larger estates, workers clayed the raw sugar before it was packed for shipping.

    The mill's owner hired a refiner from abroad to teach his workers how to clay sugar.

    Note

    The verb belongs to the history of the sugar trade, and sugar is almost always its object. Stuart B. Schwartz, in Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society (1985), writes that the Portuguese mastered the technique while other European nations tried to learn its secrets, and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) describes colonial rules that amounted to a ban on claying or refining sugar.

11. 11
    mothnouncountable

    A moth of the species Mythimna ferrago.

    A clay was the only new species in this morning's moth trap.

    Several clays settled on the white sheet below the lamp.

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