clayey
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clayey
- /ˈkleɪ(j)i/ UK
- /ˈkleɪi/ US
Rhymes with -eɪi
Where it comes from
From Middle English cleyy, cleyye (“clayish; messy; unclean”) [and other forms], either:
* from Middle English clei, cley (“clay; clayey soil; clay-containing material used as mortar or plaster”) [and other forms] + -i (suffix forming adjectives); clei, cley is derived from Old English clǣġ (“clay”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gleh₁y-, *gley- (“to smear; to stick; glue; putty”); or
* from Old English clǣig (“clayey”), from clǣġ (“clay”) (see above) + -iġ (suffix forming adjectives).
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.
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.”
adjective clayier · clayiest
-
Composed of clay or containing (much) clay; clayish.
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.
Similar: argillaceous, argillous · Opposite: nonclayey, unclayed
- Covered or dirtied with clay. Wheat-fields, one would think, cannot come to grow untilled; no man made clayey, or made weary thereby;—unless machinery will do it?
- Resembling clay; claylike, clayish. Death, grim Death, will fold / Me, in his leaden Arms, and preſs me cloſe / To his cold clayie Breaſt: […]
- Of the human body, as contrasted with the soul; bodily, human, mortal. 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.
Translations
Talk about this word "clayey." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/clayey. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. clayey. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/clayey "clayey." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/clayey.Cite this
@misc{clayey_2026,
title = {clayey},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/clayey},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
