Clayey

a. Forms: 1 clǽiʓ, 4 cleȝy, cleyye, cleyi, 6 claieie, 6–8 clayie, 7 claiy, cleyie, 7–8 claiey, 6– clayey. [f. CLAY sb. + -Y¹: the e is merely to separate two ys.]

  1.  Characterized by the presence of clay; full of or abounding in clay; composed of, or of the nature of clay; argillaceous.

1024.  Cod. Dipl., IV. 31. Or halʓan wylle west be dic on ða clæian lane.

1382.  Wyclif, 1 Kings vii. 46. In the cleyye erthe [1388 in cleyi lond] betwix Socoht and Sarcham.

1597.  Pilgr. Parnass., I. 122. To draw his slowe feete ore the clayie lande.

1696.  Whiston, Th. Earth, IV. (1722), 312. Earthy, Claiy, Sandy, Gravelly, Stony Strata.

1796.  Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 755. The soil having … become more stiff and clayey.

1865.  Lyell, Elem. Geol., xi. 145. In North Greenland powerful springs of clayey water escape … from under the ice.

1878.  Huxley, Physiogr., 35. The Seven Springs are thrown out from clayey beds which belong to the … Lias.

  b.  fig. Of ‘mortal clay’: applied to the body (usually as the habitation of the soul).

1581.  Sidney, Apology (Arb.), 29. Degenerate soules made worse by theyr clayey lodgings.

1640.  T. Carew, Poems (1651), 71.

1795.  Southey, Joan of Arc, IX. 191. Amid these tombs Cold as their clayey tenants.

1842.  Mrs. Browning, Grk. Chr. Poets (1863), 38. To low estate of clayey creature.

  2.  Coated, smeared or soiled with clay.

1382.  Wyclif, Ecclus. xxii. 1. In a cleȝy ston.

1837.  Carlyle, Fr. Rev. (1857), I. I. II. i. 26. Wheat-fields … cannot come to grow untilled: no man made clayey or made weary thereby.

  3.  Resembling clay; clay-like.

1684.  H. More, Answer, 211. They having a Clayey conscience, that would comply and fit it self to any occasion.

1697.  Congreve, Mourning Bride, II. i. Grim death will … press me close To his cold clayey breast.

1771.  Mackenzie, Man Feel., xxvi. (1803), 36. Her lip assumed a clayey whiteness.

1862.  Thornbury, Turner, I. 89. Ibbetson look to copying Berghem, in a clear, firm, rather hard manner, with clayey tones.