clayier

Adjective

clayey (comparative clayier, superlative clayiest)

1. 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...

   Synonyms:

   argillaceous, argillous

   Antonyms:

   nonclayey, unclayed

2. 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
3. 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

4. (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...