subs. (colloquial).—A clay pipe. Cf., YARD OF CLAY, but for synonyms, see CHURCHWARDEN.

1

  1859.  FAIRHOLT, Tobacco (1876), 173. Such long pipes were reverently termed ALDERMEN in the last age, and irreverently YARDS OF CLAY in the present one.

2

  1861.  T. HUGHES, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xxi., p. 223. ‘He is churchwarden at home, and can’t smoke anything but a long CLAY.’

3

  1866.  The London Miscellany, 19 May, p. 235, col. 2. Surely these men, who win and lose fortunes with the stolidity of a mynheer smoking his CLAY YARD, must be of entirely different stuff from the rest of us.

4

  1871.  C. S. CALVERLEY, Verses and Translations. ‘Ode to Tobacco.’

        Jones …
Daily absorbs a CLAY
    After his labours.

5

  TO MOISTEN, SOAK, or WET ONE’S CLAY, verbal, phr.—To drink. [Clay = the human body.]

6

  1708.  The British Apollo, No. 80, 3, 1. We were MOISTENING OUR CLAY.

7

  1711.  ADDISON, Spectator, No. 72, par. 9. To MOISTEN THEIR CLAY, and grow immortal by drinking.

8

  1731.  FIELDING, A New Way to Keep a Wife at Home, Act ii., Sc. 2.

        A soph, he is immortal,
  And never can decay;
For how should he return to dust
  Who daily WETS HIS CLAY?

9

  1790.  W. B. RHODES, Bombastes Furioso. MOISTENING OUR CLAY and puffing off our cares.

10

  1800.  Morning Chronicle (in Whibley, p. 92).

        Then lay by your books, lads, and never repine;
        And Cram not your attics
        With dry mathematics,
But MOISTEN YOUR CLAY with a bumper of wine.

11

  1836.  DICKENS, Pickwick Papers, ch. xxxix., p. 345. Ever and anon MOISTENING HIS CLAY and his labours with a glass of claret.

12

  1837.  R. H. BARHAM, The Ingoldsby Legends (The ‘Monstre’ Balloon).

        And they’re feasting the party, and SOAKING THEIR CLAY
With Johannisberg, Rudesheim, Moselle, and Tokay!

13

  1864.  J. R. LOWELL, Fireside Travels, 119. When his poor old CLAY WAS WET with gin.  [M.]

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