clay

noun

1. 1

   A mineral substance made up of small crystals of silica and alumina, that is ductile when moist; the material of pre-fired ceramics.

   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 […]

2. 2

   An earth material with ductile qualities.

3. 3

   A tennis court surface made of crushed stone, brick, shale, or other unbound mineral aggregate.

   The French Open is played on clay.

4. 4

   The material of the human body.

   From clay we are made.

   Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about...thou hast made me as the clay.

   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. 5

   A particle less than 3.9 microns in diameter, following the Wentworth scale.

6. 6

   A clay pipe for smoking tobacco.

7. 7

   informalA clay pigeon.

   We went shooting clays at the weekend.

8. 8

   Land or territory of a country or other political region, especially when subject to territorial claims.

   Vilnius is rightful Polish clay.

9. 9

   A moth (Mythimna ferrago).

verb

1. 1

   To add clay to, to spread clay onto.

2. 2

   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.

   [object Object]

   The Portuguese had mastered the technique of claying sugar, and other European nations tried to learn the secrets from them.

Forms

plural

clays

past tense

clayed

past participle

clayed

present participle

claying

third person singular

clays