majolica

American  

[muh-jol-i-kuh, muh-yol-] / məˈdʒɒl ɪ kə, məˈyɒl- /

noun

1. Italian earthenware covered with an opaque glaze of tin oxide and usually highly decorated.

2. any earthenware having an opaque glaze of tin oxide.

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majolica British  

/ məˈdʒɒlɪkə, məˈjɒl- /

noun

1. a type of porous pottery glazed with bright metallic oxides that was originally imported into Italy via Majorca and was extensively made in Italy during the Renaissance

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Etymology

Origin of majolica

1545–55; ear-lier maiolica < Italian < Medieval Latin, variant of Late Latin Mājorica Majorca, where it was made

Example Sentences

Her technique is the centuries-old majolica, in which she fires her creatures and then dips them in a tin oxide glazing solution that lends an opaque white finish.

From New York Times • Aug. 19, 2021

“Dora De Larios: Other Worlds” will gather works from throughout her career — sculptures, mosaics and functional tableware, including a set of majolica dishes she created for the White House in 1977.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 27, 2018

Irwin's porcelain and earthenware "Dusky Seaside Sparrow" borrows the manner of Italian majolica portrait plates to pay homage to a species forced into extinction when development destroyed its habitat and nesting grounds.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 29, 2017

There, next to a camellia bush, he picked up a white-glazed fragment of majolica pottery—an artifact he knew to be specific to the fifteen-hundreds.

From The New Yorker • Apr. 9, 2016

In the middle of it was the old majolica vase with open dragons' jaws, where a bunch of gloire de Dijon roses languished exhausted from the heat of the day.

From The Undying Past by Sudermann, Hermann