rare. [ad. Gr. σμηκτίς, a kind of fuller’s earth.] (See quots. and next.)
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Smectis,… Fullers-Earth.
1783. Phil. Trans., LXXIII. 227. It feels like hard soap, or rather like that kind of stone which the mineralogists call Smectis.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., II. 330. And how is a clay to be distinguished from the smectis or soap-rock?
1905. Oban Advertiser, 19 Aug., 3. By different authors, the ‘lapis nephriticus’ has been considered as an agate, a jasper, a gypsum, and a smectis.
