# clay
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English cley, clay, from Old English clǣġ (“clay”), from Proto-West Germanic *klaij, from Proto-Germanic *klajjaz (“clay”), from Proto-Indo-European *gley- (“to glue, paste, stick together”).
Cognate with Dutch klei (“clay”), Low German Klei (“clay”), German Klei, Danish klæg (“clay”); compare Ancient Greek γλία (glía), Latin glūten (“glue”) (whence ultimately English glue), Russian глина (glina, “clay”). Related also to clag, clog.

### Pronunciation

* enPR: klā, IPA: /kleɪ/, [kl̥eɪ]
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -eɪ

### Noun

clay (usually uncountable, plural clays)
* A mineral substance made up of small crystals of silica and alumina, that is ductile when moist; the material of pre-fired ceramics.
** 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter I (Anarchy), page 377, column 2:Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with (by way of local color) on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust […]
* An earth material with ductile qualities.
* (tennis) A tennis court surface made of crushed stone, brick, shale, or other unbound mineral aggregate.
    The French Open is played on clay.
* (biblical) The material of the human body.
** 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 10:8-9:Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about...thou hast made me as the clay.
** 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 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.
* (geology) A particle less than 3.9 microns in diameter, following the Wentworth scale.
* A clay pipe for smoking tobacco.
* (firearms, informal) A clay pigeon.
    We went shooting clays at the weekend.
* (Internet slang, humorous) Land or territory of a country or other political region, especially when subject to territorial claims.
    Vilnius is rightful Polish clay.
* A moth, Mythimna ferrago

#### Antonyms

* (antonym(s) of “material of the human body”): soul, spirit

#### Hyponyms

* kaolin, kaoline

#### Derived terms

* ball clay
* boulder clay
* brickclay
* china clay
* China clay
* claybank
* claybed
* clay-cold
* clay-colored thrush
* claycourt
* clay court
* clay courter
* clayen
* clayey
* clayfield
* clayhead
* claying
* clayish
* claykicker
* Clay Lake
* clayless
* claylike
* claymation
* claypan
* clay pigeon
* claypit
* clay pit
* clay slate
* clayster
* claystone
* Clayton
* clayware
* claywork
* common clay
* Draycott in the Clay
* feet of clay
* fiber clay
* fire clay
* Holton le Clay
* iron clay
* light clay
* modeling clay
* modelling clay
* nanoclay
* nonclay
* organoclay
* paper clay
* pipeclay
* potter's clay
* salt clay
* underclay
* vitrified clay pipe
* wet one's clay
* yard of clay

#### See also

* alluvium

### Verb

clay (third-person singular simple present clays, present participle claying, simple past and past participle clayed)
* (transitive) To add clay to, to spread clay onto.
* (transitive, of sugar) To purify using clay.
** 1776, Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 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, page 200:The Portuguese had mastered the technique of claying sugar, and other European nations tried to learn the secrets from them.

#### Derived terms

* clay up

### References

* ↑ Krueger 1982; Merriam-Webster 1974.
* Krueger, Dennis (December 1982). "Why On Earth Do They Call It Throwing?" Studio Potter volume 11, Number 1. (etymology)
* “clay” in the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, 1974 edition.
* Clay, New Webster Dictionary of English Language, 1980 edition.

### Anagrams

* Lacy, acyl, lacy

## Middle English
### Noun

clay
* Alternative form of cley (“clay”)