clayey

Syllables: clay·ey/ˈkleɪ(j)i/US/ˈkleɪi/

clayey adjective: composed of clay or containing (much) clay; clayish.

Adjective

clayey (comparative clayier, superlative clayiest)

Composed of clay or containing (much) clay; clayish.
- The shores of the rivers and creeks are chiefly planted with coffee, to the distance of about 30 miles from the sea; thence 30 miles farther up, the soil becomes clayey and more fit for sugar[-]canes.1812, Antonio de Alcedo, “DEMERARA”, in G[eorge] A[lexander] Thompson, transl., The Geographical and Historical Dictionary of America and the West Indies. […], volume II, London: […] [Harding and...
- I was myself very successful in one beautiful group of insects, the tiger-beetles, which seem more abundant and varied here than anywhere else in the Archipelago. I first met with them on a cutting in the road, where a hard clayey bank was partially overgrown with mosses and small ferns.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 409
Synonyms:

argillaceous, argillous

Antonyms:

nonclayey, unclayed
Covered or dirtied with clay.
- Wheat-fields, one would think, cannot come to grow untilled; no man made clayey, or made weary thereby;—unless machinery will do it?1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Astreæa Redux”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book II (The Paper Age), page 31
Resembling clay; claylike, clayish.
- Death, grim Death, will fold / Me, in his leaden Arms, and preſs me cloſe / To his cold clayie Breaſt: […]1697, [William] Congreve, The Mourning Bride, a Tragedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act II, page 17
Synonyms:

bolar

Antonyms:

nonclayey
(figuratively) Of the human body, as contrasted with the soul; bodily, human, mortal.
- This purifing of wit, this enritching of memory, enabling of iudgment, and enlarging of conceyt, which commonly we call learning, […] the final end is, to lead and draw vs to as high a perfection, as our degenerate ſoules made worſe by their clayey lodgings, can be capable of.a. 1587 (date written), Phillip Sidney [i.e., Philip Sidney], An Apologie for Poetrie. […], London: […] [James Roberts] for Henry Olney, […], published 1595, →OCLC; republished as Edward Arber...
- [A]mid these tombs, / Cold as their clayey tenants, know, my heart / Must never grow to stone!1796, Robert Southey, “Book the Eighth”, in Joan of Arc, an Epic Poem, Bristol: […] Bulgin and Rosser, for Joseph Cottle, […], and Cadell and Davies, and G. G. and J. Robinson, […], →OCLC, page 306

clayey meaning in Hindi and Telugu

Examples of clayey in a sentence

She had walked over rotted, decaying, splintered planks covered with clayey soil: […]1994, Juan Rulfo, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, Pedro Páramo, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, →ISBN, page 90:
Limestone, of course, is calcium carbonate, and thus chemically utterly different in composition from the clayey rocks below and the hard, pebbly ones above.2004, Richard Fortey, “Alps”, in The Earth: An Intimate History, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, →ISBN, pages 99 and 101:
To low estate of clayey creature, / See, I bring the beggar's meed, / Nutriment beyond the need!1842, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets”, in Essays on the Greek Christian Poets and the English...
Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if, darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Nightgown”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers...

Synonyms of clayey

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of clayey

Forms of clayey

comparative	clayier
superlative	clayiest

Origin of clayey

From Middle English cleyy, cleyye (“clayish; messy; unclean”) [and other forms], either: * from Middle English clei, cley (“clay; clayey soil; clay-containing material used as mortar or plaster”) [and other forms] + -i (suffix forming adjectives); clei, cley is derived from Old English clǣġ (“clay”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gleh₁y-, *gley- (“to smear; to stick; glue; putty”); or * from Old English clǣig (“clayey”), from clǣġ (“clay”) (see above) + -iġ (suffix forming adjectives). The English word is equivalent to clay + -ey (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘having the quality of’), with the -e- included to avoid the occurrence of -yy. Sense 4 (“of the human body, as contrasted with the soul”) may allude to the biblical account of God creating man from earth; see Genesis 2:7 (King James Version; spelling modernized): “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”

Words formed from clayey

Words that rhyme with clayey

swayey

Questions about clayey

What does clayey mean?: Clayey means composed of clay or containing (much) clay; clayish.
What is clayey in Hindi?: Clayey in Hindi is मटियार (maṭiyār). See Clayey meaning in Hindi.
How do you use clayey in a sentence?: She had walked over rotted, decaying, splintered planks covered with clayey soil: […]
What part of speech is clayey?: Clayey is an adjective.
How do you pronounce clayey?: Clayey is pronounced /ˈkleɪ(j)i/ (UK).

Words near clayey in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: clayey (page history and authors); मटियार (Hindi) (page history and authors); రేగటి (Telugu) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-clayey.wav.

Cite this entry: “clayey.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clayey. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.