clayey

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English

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WOTD – 4 December 2021

Etymology

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From Middle English cleii, cleyye (“clayish; messy; unclean”) [and other forms],[1] either:

The English word is equivalent to clay +‎ -ey (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘having the quality of’), with the -e- included to avoid the occurrence of -yy.[4]

Sense 4 (“of the human body, as contrasted with the soul”) may allude to the biblical account of God creating man from earth; see Genesis 2:7 (King James Version; spelling modernized): “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”[5]

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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clayey (comparative clayier, superlative clayiest)

  1. Composed of clay or containing (much) clay; clayish.
    Synonyms: argillaceous, argillous
    Antonyms: nonclayey, unclayed
    • 1812, Antonio de Alcedo, “DEMERARA”, in translated by G[eorge] A[lexander] Thompson, The Geographical and Historical Dictionary of America and the West Indies. […], volume II, London: […] [Harding and Wright] for James Carpenter, […], →OCLC, page 13, column 2:
      The shores of the rivers and creeks are chiefly planted with coffee, to the distance of about 30 miles from the sea; thence 30 miles farther up, the soil becomes clayey and more fit for sugar[-]canes.
    • 1994, Juan Rulfo, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, Pedro Páramo, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, →ISBN, page 90:
      She had walked over rotted, decaying, splintered planks covered with clayey soil: […]
    • 2004, Richard Fortey, “Alps”, in The Earth: An Intimate History, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, →ISBN, pages 99 and 101:
      Limestone, of course, is calcium carbonate, and thus chemically utterly different in composition from the clayey rocks below and the hard, pebbly ones above.
  2. Covered or dirtied with clay.
  3. Resembling clay; claylike, clayish.
    Synonym: bolar
    Antonym: nonclayey
  4. (figuratively) Of the human body, as contrasted with the soul; bodily, human, mortal.
    • a. 1587 (date written), Phillip Sidney [i.e., Philip Sidney], An Apologie for Poetrie. […], London: […] [James Roberts] for Henry Olney, […], published 1595, →OCLC; republished as Edward Arber, editor, An Apologie for Poetrie (English Reprints), London: [Alexander Murray & Son], 1 April 1868, →OCLC, page 29:
      This purifing of wit, this enritching of memory, enabling of iudgment, and enlarging of conceyt, which commonly we call learning, […] the final end is, to lead and draw vs to as high a perfection, as our degenerate ſoules made worſe by their clayey lodgings, can be capable of.
    • 1796, Robert Southey, “Book the Eighth”, in Joan of Arc, an Epic Poem, Bristol: […] Bulgin and Rosser, for Joseph Cottle, […], and Cadell and Davies, and G. G. and J. Robinson, […], →OCLC, page 306:
      [A]mid these tombs, / Cold as their clayey tenants, know, my heart / Must never grow to stone!
    • 1842, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets”, in Essays on the Greek Christian Poets and the English Poets, New York, N.Y.: James Miller, (successor to C. S. Francis & Co.,) […], published 1863, →OCLC, page 50:
      To low estate of clayey creature, / See, I bring the beggar's meed, / Nutriment beyond the need!
      An English translation by Browning of “Soul and Body”, a poem by Gregory of Nazianzus.
    • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Nightgown”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, pages 59–60:
      [W]hen between sheets, whether by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness of being in bed. Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if, darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “cleiī, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “clei, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  3. ^ “-ī̆, suf.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  4. ^ “clayey, adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2021; “clayey, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  5. ^ The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], 1611, →OCLC, Genesis 2:7, column 2: “And the Lord God formed man of the duſt of the ground, & breathed into his noſtrils the breath of life, and man became a liuing soule.”

Further reading

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Anagrams

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