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lexioned person. A flower is the best-complexioned grass, as a pearl is the best- colored clay. Fuller.

egation of the material around a center; as, the calcareous concretions common in beds of clay.

To grow firm and hard; to unite and become solid; as, moist clay consolidates by drying. In hurts and ulcers of the head, dryness maketh them more apt to consolidate. Bacon.

A clay tablet on which was inscribed a contract, for safe keeping. Such tablets were inclosed in an outer case (often called the envelope), on which was inscribed a duplicate of the inscription on the inclosed tablet.

Dry and hard; impermeable; unyielding. [Obs.] Clay in dry seasons is costive, hardening with the sun and wind. Mortimer.

An implement for drawing, made of clay and plumbago, or of some preparation of chalk, usually sold in small prisms or cylinders. Let no day pass over you . . . without giving some strokes of the pencil or the crayon. Dryden.

Earthenware; vessels formed of baked clay, especially the coarser kinds.

A vessel or melting pot, composed of some very refractory substance, as clay, graphite, platinum, and used for melting and calcining substances which require a strong degree of heat, as metals, ores, etc.

To make holes or indentations in, as if with a dibble. The clayey soil around it was dibbled thick at the time by the tiny hoofs of sheep. H. Miller.

In placer mining, earth, gravel, etc., before washing. Dirt bed (Geom.), a layer of clayey earth forming a stratum in a geological formation. Dirt beds are common among the coal measures. -- Dirt eating. (a) The use of certain kinds of clay for food, existing among some tribes of Indians; geophagism. Humboldt. (b) (Me…

A concretionary nodule of clay ironstone, of the size of a walnut or larger, so called by the ancients, who believed that the eagle transported these stones to her nest to facilitate the laying of her eggs; aëtites.

ace of the globe, in distinction from the firm rock; soil of all kinds, including gravel, clay, loam, and the like; sometimes, soil favorable to the growth of plants; the visible surface of the globe; the ground; as, loose earth; rich earth. Give him a little earth for charity. Shak.

Made of earth; made of burnt or baked clay, or other like substances; as, an earthen vessel or pipe.

Vessels and other utensils, ornaments, or the like, made of baked clay. See Crockery, Pottery, Stoneware, and Porcelain.

To lay as in a bed; to lay in surrounding matter; to bed; as, to embed a thing in clay, mortar, or sand.

To coat with clay; to lute. [Obs.] Chaucer.

weeds and insects, and rendering it mellow; as, it is profitable to fallow cold, strong, clayey land.

blank, cuts, or many leads, etc.; as, a fat take; a fat page. Fat lute, a mixture of pipe clay and oil for filling joints.

lmitic acids, occur in the natural fats, and are themselves fatlike substances. -- Fatty clays. See under Clay. -- Fatty degeneration (Med.), a diseased condition, in which the oil globules, naturally present in certain organs, are so multiplied as gradually to destroy and replace the efficient parts of these organs.…

The operation of shaving or smoothing the surface of undried clay ware.