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  • pipe clay
    pipe clay
    noun
    a fine, white clay used for making tobacco pipes, whitening parts of military or other dress, etc.
  • pipe-clay
    pipe-clay
    verb (used with object)
    to whiten with pipe clay.

pipe clay

1 American  

noun

  1. a fine, white clay used for making tobacco pipes, whitening parts of military or other dress, etc.


pipe-clay 2 American  
[pahyp-kley] / ˈpaɪpˌkleɪ /

verb (used with object)

  1. to whiten with pipe clay.


Etymology

Origin of pipe clay1

First recorded in 1750–60

Origin of pipe-clay2

First recorded in 1825–35

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Yet on field-days, even their most pipe clay of colonels admitted that there was no smarter turned out troop than Lascelles', and no better squadron leader than Du Meresq.

From Bluebell A Novel by Huddleston, Mrs. George Croft

The pipe clay contains leaves of trees, sometimes beautifully preserved.

From The Geological Story of the Isle of Wight by Hughes, J. Cecil

The necessary angles and bearings for the survey, were taken from the top of some cliffs sixty feet high, composed of a red sand and ironstone, and a white kind of marl or pipe clay.

From Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43. By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative Of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea. by Stokes, John Lort

In the Awatobi collections there are several small disks made apparently of pipe clay, which also were probably used as ornaments.

From Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744 by Fewkes, Jesse Walter

His whole breast was zebraed with white marks, done with pipe clay.

From Dick Sand A Captain at Fifteen by Verne, Jules

After the stripes have dried, apply English pipe-clay, rubbing with the cake itself; then rub in uniformly with woolen cloth rubber—rub vigorously—then brush off surplus pipe-clay.

From Manual of Military Training Second, Revised Edition by Moss, James A. (James Alfred)

The white also used for accessories is an earth or clay; in the slip coating of the white ground vases it assumes the consistency of pipe-clay.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 6 "Celtes, Konrad" to "Ceramics" by Various

There are many other varieties of clay-rocks—such as fire-clay, pipe-clay, marl, loam, &c.—which are sufficiently familiar.

From Geology by Geikie, James

Two females, of a dejected appearance, watched by its side, plaintively chanting, and beating the air with large grass fans whitened with pipe-clay.

From Typee by Melville, Herman

When will the soldier cease to depend for cleanliness upon pipe-clay, justly styled by Dr Fergusson "as absurd and unwholesome a nuisance as ever was invented."

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846 by Various

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