different between clay vs fictile

English

Etymology

From Middle English cley, clay, from Old English cl?? (“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 ???? (glía), Latin gl?ten (“glue”) (whence ultimately English glue), Ukrainian ???? (glej, “clay”). Related also to clag, clog.

Pronunciation

• enPR: kl?, IPA^(key): /kle?/, [kl?e?]
• Rhymes: -e?

Noun

clay (usually uncountable, plural clays)

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 colour) on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust […].

2. An earth material with ductile qualities.
3. (tennis) A tennis court surface made of crushed stone, brick, shale, or other unbound mineral aggregate.

4. (biblical) The material of the human body.
   • 1611, Old Testament, King James Version, Job 10:8-9:

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

   • 1611, Old Testament, King James Version, 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.

5. (geology) A particle less than 3.9 microns in diameter, following the Wentworth scale.
6. A clay pipe for smoking tobacco.
7. (firearms, informal) A clay pigeon.

   We went shooting clays at the weekend.

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

   Danzig is rightfully German clay.

Antonyms

• (material of the human body): soul, spirit

Hyponyms

• kaolin, kaoline
• ball clay
• fire clay
• potter's clay

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• alluvium

Verb

clay (third-person singular simple present clays, present participle claying, simple past and past participle clayed)

1. (transitive) To add clay to, to spread clay onto.
2. (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.

References

• Krueger, Dennis (December 1982). "Why On Earth Do They Call It Throwing?" Studio Potter volume 11, Number 1.[2] (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

1. Alternative form of cley (“clay”)

English

Etymology

Latin fictilus, from fictus (from fingere (“to shape, form, devise”)) + -ilis

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?f?kt?l/, /?f?kt?l/, /?f?kta?l/

Adjective

fictile (comparative more fictile, superlative most fictile)

1. Capable of being molded into the shape of an artifact or art work
2. (of an art work or artifact) Molded of clay or earth
3. (pottery) Of or relating to earthenware
4. (figuratively) Capable of being led or directed

Synonyms

• pliable; see also Thesaurus:moldable

Translations

Latin

Adjective

fictile

1. nominative neuter singular of fictilis
2. accusative neuter singular of fictilis
3. vocative neuter singular of fictilis

References

• fictile in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• fictile in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin