clay

«clay» in Mova's school dictionary: soft, sticky earth that you can shape with your hands and… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (clay — uncountable)

meaning for a pupil

1) Clay is soft, sticky earth that you can shape with your hands and then bake or dry so it goes hard. tree →

2) Clay is used for pots, bricks, tiles and models. tree →

3) Clay soil is heavy soil that holds water. tree →

sense in the lessons

maths: a material shared or used to make things, often by weight (things = material ÷ amount per thing); art: modelling clay, pots in a kiln; science: clay soil holds water, bricks are baked clay; history: clay tablets and pots made long ago

examples

• She has 2 kg of clay. tree →
• Each pot uses 300 g of clay. tree →
• He made 6 clay bowls. tree →
• How many pots from 3 pounds of clay? tree →
• We made clay animals in art class. tree →
• The pot is baked in a hot oven called a kiln. tree →
• Bricks are made from clay. tree →
• Clay soil gets sticky after rain. tree →

note

Material ÷ amount per thing gives how many things. Trap: change kilograms to grams first (1 kg = 1000 g). Uncountable: «some clay», «a lump of clay», not «a clay».

In the corpora

• Pencil "lead" is graphite, a kind of carbon, mixed with clay; it contains no lead metal.
• Keep clay moist under plastic so it does not dry out, and wash your hands after using it.
• A kiln for firing clay is extremely hot and is for adults only.
• Settled people made pots of baked clay to store grain, water and oil.
• Scribes pressed a cut reed into wet clay, making wedge-shaped marks called cuneiform.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «clay» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.