A hydrous silicate of alumina, used in cleansing cloth; also Geol. a group of strata characterized by the presence of this earth.
1523. Fitzherb., Surv., 31. Mynes of tynne, leed, ore, cole … lymestonne, chalke, furlers [sic 1526; ed. 1534 fullers] erthe, Sande, cley.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XXXV. xvii. II. 560. This Fullers earth Cimolia is of a cooling nature, and being vsed in the forme of a liniment, it staieth immoderat sweats.
1667. E. Chamberlayne, St. Gt. Brit., I. (1684), 7. Fullers Earth is no where else produced in that abundance and excellency as in England.
1738. Chesterf., Comm. Sense, 11 Nov. (1739), II. 238. Fuller’s-Earth, the Exportation of which is strictly prohibited by our Laws.
1836. Hor. Smith, The Tin Trumpet (1876), 7. Dirt wantonly cast, only acts like fullers’ earth, defiling for the moment, but purifying in the end; so that those who are most bespattered, come out the most immaculate.
1854. F. C. Bakewell, Geol., 50. The bed of clay called fuller’s earth, resting upon the inferior oolite in Somersetshire and Gloucestershire, may be considered merely local, for it does not extend northwards beyond the latter county.
1878. Huxley, Physiography, 36. This Fuller’s earth forms a thick bed of clay, which retains the water that reaches it, in enormous quantity, by percolation through the porous limestones and sands of the great oolite series.
fig. 1670. Eachard, Cont. Clergy, 56. The blots of sin, will be easily taken out by the Soap of Sorrow, and the Fullers Earth of Contrition.
1727. Gay, Beggar’s Opera, I. ix. Money, Wife, is the true Fuller’s Earth for Reputations, there is not a Spot or a Stain but what it can take out.
attrib. 1816. W. Smith, Strata Ident., 31. The Fuller’s Earth Rock, which in many places is so soft and imperfectly lapidified as scarcely to deserve the name of stone.
