Jump To:

• soddy
  soddy

  adjective

  of or relating to sod.
• Soddy
  Soddy

  noun

  Frederick, 1877–1956, English chemist: Nobel Prize 1921.

soddy

¹ American  

[sod-ee] / ˈsɒd i /

adjective

soddier, soddiest

1. of or relating to sod.

2. consisting of sod.

---

noun

soddies plural

1. Western U.S. Also soddie. sod house.

Soddy ² American  

[sod-ee] / ˈsɒd i /

noun

1. Frederick, 1877–1956, English chemist: Nobel Prize 1921.

---

Soddy British  

/ ˈsɒdɪ /

noun

1. Frederick. 1877–1956, English chemist, whose work on radioactive disintegration led to the discovery of isotopes: Nobel prize for chemistry 1921

---

Soddy Scientific  

/ sŏd′ē /

1. British chemist who was a pioneer in the study of radioactivity. With Ernest Rutherford, he explained the atomic disintegration of radioactive elements. Soddy also coined the word isotope to describe elements that were chemically identical but had different atomic weights. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1921.

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• soddies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of soddy

First recorded in 1605–15; sod ¹ + -y ¹, -y ²

Explanation

In the frontier days on the Great Plains, most settlers either lived in a log cabin or a soddy, which was made of grass turf. A soddy, or sod house, was an alternative shelter when wood or stone was scarce. Settlers who lived in sturdier homes might still have built soddies to house their animals. Using thick strips of turf, dense with deep-rooted prairie grass, people would pile stacks into sturdy walls. Doors and windows were fitted into the soddy walls, and a sod roof added on top. These grass houses were cheap and quick to build, but vulnerable to rain.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

soddy Soddy

Carver moved in a cookstove, bed, cupboard, table and chairs and washtub and flat iron into the 14-square-foot soddy.

From Washington Times ● Feb. 26, 2016

I had abandoned my little "soddy" and was living in a house on the old townsite, where I intended staying until spring.

From The Conquest The Story of a Negro Pioneer by Micheaux, Oscar

The Ranger opened the door of the "soddy," stepped through, and closed it behind him.

From Oh, You Tex! by Raine, William MacLeod

She sits at the door of her soddy with her faithful tabby in her lap and is content.

From The American Country Girl by Crow, Martha Foote

Notice, girls, that you see no green grass in that soddy matter I have shaved off with my spade—only the under surface of the sods.

From The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. by Shaw, Ellen Eddy

What physicists Soddy and Rutherford realized was that nature itself is an alchemist, "transmuting" materials into other types of materials through the spontaneous process of radioactive decay.

From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2023

In 2010, the American Physical Society honored Rutherford and his collaborator Frederick Soddy for their work on radioactivity by presenting plaques to McGill University.

From Slate ● May 2, 2022

The sound had been lusher and silkier the previous Saturday, when Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” which runs through May 7, was revived at the company, conducted by Alexander Soddy.

From New York Times ● Mar. 27, 2022

The lawsuit says Wilkey escorted her to Soddy Lake and stripped down to his underwear, while she refused to take off her clothes, and Goforth witnessed the ritual as Wilkey dunked Riley beneath the water.

From Washington Times ● Oct. 3, 2019

There was also the problem, demonstrated by Rutherford and Soddy early in the century, that Earthly elements hold huge reserves of heat–much too much to allow for the sort of cooling and shrinking Suess suggested.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson