different between clay vs loess

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

Borrowed from German Löss (“yellowish-gray soil”), from Alemannic German lösch (“loose”). Cognate with German los and English lease.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /l??s/, /?l???s/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?lo?.?s/, /l?s/, /l?s/

Noun

loess (countable and uncountable, plural loesses)

1. (geology) Any sediment, dominated by silt, of eolian (wind-blown) origin

Derived terms

• loessic

Translations

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “loess”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• loses, selos, sloes, soles

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• loesse

Noun

loess m (uncountable)

1. (geology) loess (accumulation of wind-blown sediment)

Romanian

Etymology

From French lœss.

Noun

loess n (plural loessuri)

1. loess

Declension