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clay

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A mineral substance made up of small crystals of silica and alumina, that is ductile when moist.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

klay
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈkleɪ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A mineral substance made up of small crystals of silica and alumina, that is ductile when moist; the material of pre-fired ceramics.

  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. United States general who commanded United States forces in Europe from 1945 to 1949 and who oversaw the Berlin airlift (1897-1978)

  5. United States politician responsible for the Missouri Compromise between free and slave states (1777-1852)

  6. A number of places in the United States

verb

  1. transitiveof sugar

    To purify using clay.

  2. transitive

    To add clay to, to spread clay onto.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A mineral substance made up of small crystals of silica and alumina, that is ductile when moist; the material of pre-fired ceramics.

Used this way, clay is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It stays understated rather than dramatic. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Mild
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use clay

  • “The sculptor molded the soft clay into a beautiful vase.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

red clayboulder claywhite claysandy claysoft clayclay soilsclay contentclay loam

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • clay-colored robinnounCompound term

    Robin of Mexico and Central America.

  • clay pigeonnounCompound term

    Target used in skeet or trapshooting.

  • clay pipenounCompound term

    A pipe made of clay.

  • clay sculpturenounCompound term

    Sculpture produced by molding.

  • indurated claynounCompound term

    Hardened clay.

  • porcelain claynounCompound term

    A fine usually white clay formed by the weathering of aluminous minerals (as feldspar).

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: to purify using clay

mudcorpseInformal

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.