| / English Dictionary |
CLAY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The dead body of a human being
Example:
honor comes to bless the turf that wraps their clay
Synonyms:
cadaver; clay; corpse; remains; stiff
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("clay" is a kind of...):
body; dead body (a natural object consisting of a dead animal or person)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "clay"):
cremains (the remains of a dead body after cremation)
Sense 2
Meaning:
United States politician responsible for the Missouri Compromise between free and slave states (1777-1852)
Synonyms:
Clay; Henry Clay; the Great Compromiser
Classified under:
Instance hypernyms:
pol; political leader; politician; politico (a person active in party politics)
Sense 3
Meaning:
United States general who commanded United States forces in Europe from 1945 to 1949 and who oversaw the Berlin airlift (1897-1978)
Synonyms:
Clay; Lucius Clay; Lucius DuBignon Clay
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Instance hypernyms:
full general; general (a general officer of the highest rank)
Sense 4
Meaning:
A very fine-grained soil that is plastic when moist but hard when fired
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("clay" is a kind of...):
dirt; soil (the part of the earth's surface consisting of humus and disintegrated rock)
Meronyms (substance of "clay"):
atomic number 14; Si; silicon (a tetravalent nonmetallic element; next to oxygen it is the most abundant element in the earth's crust; occurs in clay and feldspar and granite and quartz and sand; used as a semiconductor in transistors)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "clay"):
daub (material used to daub walls)
potter's clay; potter's earth (clay that does not contain any iron; used in making pottery or for modeling)
Kitty Litter (granulated clay; placed in a container where it absorbs the waste products of a cat or dog)
fireclay (a heat-resistant clay)
bentonite (an absorbent aluminum silicate clay formed from volcanic ash)
pipeclay; terra alba (fine white clay used in making tobacco pipes and pottery and in whitening leather)
red clay (clay whose redness results from iron oxide)
china clay; china stone; kaolin; kaoline; porcelain clay; terra alba (a fine usually white clay formed by the weathering of aluminous minerals (as feldspar); used in ceramics and as an absorbent and as a filler (e.g., in paper))
argil (a white clay (especially a white clay used by potters))
adobe (the clay from which adobe bricks are made)
Holonyms ("clay" is a substance of...):
clayware; pottery (ceramic ware made from clay and baked in a kiln)
brick (rectangular block of clay baked by the sun or in a kiln; used as a building or paving material)
roofing tile; tile (a thin flat slab of fired clay used for roofing)
Sense 5
Meaning:
Water soaked soil; soft wet earth
Synonyms:
clay; mud
Classified under:
Nouns denoting substances
Hypernyms ("clay" is a kind of...):
dirt; soil (the part of the earth's surface consisting of humus and disintegrated rock)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "clay"):
bleaching clay; bleaching earth (an adsorbent clay that will remove coloring from oils)
mud pie (a mass of mud that a child has molded into the shape of pie)
mire; slop (deep soft mud in water or slush)
Context examples:
A return to clay and plaster followed, and ghostly casts of her acquaintances haunted corners of the house, or tumbled off closet shelves onto people's heads.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Studies of French clays—green clays historically used in France in mineral baths—show that the clays have antibacterial properties.
(New answer to MRSA, other 'superbug' infections: clay minerals?, NSF)
Mrs Clay was very pleasant, and very smiling, but her courtesies and smiles were more a matter of course.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
A clay compound consisting of aluminosilicate and calcium ions with potential antidiarrheal activity.
(Calcium Aluminosilicate Anti-Diarrheal, NCI Thesaurus)
At the farther end of this forest clearing there stood forty or fifty huts, built very neatly from wood and clay, with the blue smoke curling out from the roofs.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Good horses for the Sussex clay.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
An eating disorder characterized by the persistent eating of nonnutritive substances such as clay or soil; this behavior must be inappropriate to the level of the individual's development.
(Pica Eating Disorder, NCI Thesaurus)
Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
It wasn’t black, sir, nor was it white, nor any colour that I know but a kind of queer shade like clay with a splash of milk in it.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Twice we found pits of blue clay, such as we had already seen in the swamp of the pterodactyls.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
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