Search the Dictionary

The act or art of communicating to articles in metal, wood, clay, plaster, etc., the appearance of bronze by means of bronze powders, or imitative painting, or by chemical processes. Tomlinson.

in due degree for obtaining a desired residuum, product, or effect; to bake; as, to burn clay in making bricks or pottery; to burn wood so as to produce charcoal; to burn limestone for the lime.

A small saucer of clay for roasting or melting samples of ores, etc.; a scorifier.

A red clay from the Upper Missouri region, used by the Indians for their pipes.

A kind of calcined limestone, or a calcined mixture of clay and lime, for making mortar which will harden under water.

The art of making things of baked clay; as pottery, tiles, etc.

Finely prepared chalk, used as a drawing implement; also, by extension, a compound, as of clay and black lead, or the like, used in the same manner. See Crayon. Black chalk, a mineral of a bluish color, of a slaty texture, and soiling the fingers when handled; a variety of argillaceous slate. -- By a long chalk, by a…

a stem, four or five feet long and not pliant, of some valuable wood, and a bowl of baked clay.

ll-known garden flower and plant. See Aster. -- China bean. See under Bean, 1. -- China clay See Kaolin. -- China grass, Same as Ramie. -- China ink. See India ink. -- China pink (Bot.), an anual or biennial species of Dianthus (D. Chiensis) having variously colored single or double flowers; Indian pink. -- China…

A clay tobacco pipe, with a long tube. [Slang, Eng.] There was a small wooden table placed in front of the smoldering fire, with decanters, a jar of tobacco, and two long churchwardens. W. Black.

A soft, earthy, clayey mineral, of whitish or grayish color.

Stiff, stubborn, clayey, or tenacious; as, a cledgy soil. Halliwell.

A lump or mass, especially of earth, turf, or clay. "Clods of a slimy substance." Carew. "Clods of iron and brass." Milton. "Clods of blood." E. Fairfax. The earth that casteth up from the plow a great clod, is not so good as that which casteth up a smaller clod. Bacon.

The compressed clay of coal strata. Brande & C.

Indurated clay. See Bind, n., 3.

Clay mixed with straw. [Prov. Eng.] The poor cottager contenteth himself with cob for his walls, and thatch for his covering. R. Carew.

A wall made of clay mixed with straw.

To secure from leaking, as a chaft, by ramming clay behind the masonry or timbering. Raymond.

A water-tight inclosure, as of piles packed with clay, from which the water is pumped to expose the bottom (of a river, etc.) and permit the laying of foundations, building of piers, etc.

or sticking together, as in a mass; capable of cohering; tending to cohere; as, cohesive clay. Cohesive attraction. See under Attraction. -- Co*he"sive*ly, adv. -- Co*he"sive*ness, n.