Word.ws English Dictionary

earthen

/ˈɜː(ɹ)θən/US/ˈɝθən/

earthen adjective: made of earth or mud.

Adjective

earthen (comparative more earthen, superlative most earthen)

  1. Made of earth or mud.
    • A hundred earthen dwellings stood on the margin of the lake […]1826, James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans
    • But transects have also been utilised in a large variety of arenas, including surveying the contents of Amerindian earthen mounds[.]2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 4
  2. (especially) Made of clay.
    • ... the Godfathers and Godmothers follow into the midst of the Church, where there is a small table ready set, and on it an earthen pot ful of warme water, […]1589, Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation
    • But, leſt theſe Reaſons ſhould be eſteemed conjectural, I ſhall farther prove, and confirm my Opinion from Martinius, who, in the Place before quoted, ſpeaks in the following Manner: "It is not without Reaſon, that the City Gnihing [translating 宜興 /宜兴 (Yíxīng)] receives that Name, which, in their...1746, Simon Pauli, quoting Martinius, translated by Dr. James, A Treatise on Tobacco, Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate, London: T. Osborne, →OCLC, pages 149–150
  3. (archaic) Earthly.
    • Will they be yours when one by one these earthen / Delights and comforts and all beauties wane? / Will they be found laid up above, illumined?1903, Maria Lydia Winkler, From Glory to Glory; Or, The Christian's Glorious Ministry, page 228

Verb

earthen (third-person singular simple present earthens, present participle earthening, simple past and past participle earthened)

  1. (transitive) to provide or add soil to
    • Their inter-tillage operations, earthening-up of some crops and tillage in orchard/gardens or plantation crops, are stated below, under special cropping system in different situations.2017, N.R. Das, Tillage and Crop Production, 2nd Ed., page 104
  2. (transitive) to make earthly or earthlike
    • It deadens,—or earthens—the spirit in both directions.1919, The Improvement Era, volume 23, page 191

earthen meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam

earthen in Hindi

earthen, made of clay or earth
मृन्मय mŕnmay

earthen in Tamil

களிமண்ணால் ஆன

earthen in Urdu

مٹی کا, زمینی

earthen in Malayalam

മണ്ണുകൊണ്ടുണ്ടാക്കിയ, മൺമയമായ
More languagesFewer languages
earthen in Kannada
ಮಣ್ಣಿನ
earthen in Assamese
প্ৰাচীৰ prasir
earthen in Arabic
تُرَابِيّ turābiyy, فَخَرِيّ faḵariyy, خَزَفِيّ ḵazafiyy, طِينِيّ ṭīniyy

Examples of earthen in a sentence

  • A wooden castle, defended by an earthen dike and a palisade of logs.
  • But mezcaleros roast the piñas in earthen mounds over pits of hot rocks.
  • A tomb in Wangguo (Jinyuan district, Taiyuan) has a single chamber built in an earthen pit.

All 12 example sentences with earthen

Forms of earthen

Adjective
comparativemore earthen
superlativemost earthen
Verb
third-person singular presentearthens
present participleearthening
past participleearthened
pastearthened

Origin of earthen

From Middle English erthen, urthen, from Old English eorþen, yrþen, ierþen (“made of earth”), from Proto-Germanic *irþīnaz. Cognate with Dutch aarden (“earthen”), German irden (“earthen”). By surface analysis, earth + -en (“made of”).

From earth + -en (“to make like”).

Words formed from earthen

Words that rhyme with earthen

Questions about earthen

What does earthen mean?
Earthen means made of earth or mud.
What is earthen in Hindi?
Earthen in Hindi is मृन्मय (mŕnmay). See Earthen meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is earthen?
Earthen can be an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce earthen?
Earthen is pronounced /ˈɝθən/ (US).

Words near earthen in the dictionary

  1. Eartheans
  2. eartheater
  3. eartheaters
  4. earthed
  5. earthed up
  6. earthen
  7. earthen mound
  8. earthened
  9. earthening
  10. earthens
  11. earthenware

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: earthen (page history and authors); मृन्मय (Hindi) (page history and authors); earthen (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); earthen (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); earthen (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); earthen (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); প্ৰাচীৰ (Assamese) (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.

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