Word.ws English Dictionary

gault

gault noun: a type of stiff, blue clay, sometimes used for making bricks.

Noun

gault (countable and uncountable, plural gaults)

  1. A type of stiff, blue clay, sometimes used for making bricks.
    • As he spoke, they turned off the main line of the rolling clays toward the foot of the chalk hills, and began to brush through short cuttings of blue gault and "green sand," so called by geologists, because its usual colours are bright brown, snow-white, and crimson.1901, Charles Kingsley, Two Years Ago, Volume I

Proper noun capitalized: Gault

Gault

  1. A surname.

Forms of gault

pluralgaults

Origin of gault

Of local origin, used by quarrymen and brickmakers to refer to the type of soil. First attested in writing as "golt" in 1815 (William Smith) and "gault" in 1816 (J Hailstone).

In some cases, from Middle English galt(e) (“boar”), from or related to Old Norse gǫltr. In other cases, from Old French gaut (“woods”) (as in placenames like Le Gault), from Proto-West Germanic *walþu.

Words formed from gault

Questions about gault

What does gault mean?
Gault means a type of stiff, blue clay, sometimes used for making bricks.
What part of speech is gault?
Gault can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of gault?
The plural of gault is gaults.

Words near gault in the dictionary

  1. Gaullism
  2. Gaullisms
  3. Gaullist
  4. Gaullists
  5. Gauls
  6. gault
  7. gaulter
  8. gaulters
  9. gaultherase
  10. gaultheria
  11. gaultherias

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gault (page history and authors); Gault (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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