red clay

5 2.4

Soil that is red from iron and becomes sticky when wet

noun
/rɛd kleɪ/

: arcilla roja

She used red clay to create beautiful pottery in her art class.
layer of red clay

And then you would put a mild adhesive on, sprinkle on some Armenian bowl, which is a red clay.

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Examples

There's red clay staining the pants.

Glass (2019)
Where he pointed, Dutch saw a strand of red clay partly hidden by trees.

Fiction book (1999)
We use the red clay from out back, mixed with horse protein.

Illegally Yours (1988)
Sitting in the red clay field, they each bit into their chosen desserts.

Fiction book (1999)
The pots are plain red clay, vessel-shaped as if for the storage of actual food and water.

Fiction book (1990)
Sam brushed at the streak of dried red clay on his shirt, the result of his fall.

Fiction book (1992)
I first watched Judith walk past my parents' house in North Carolina, on the red-clay road out front.

Fiction book (1999)
There were no fences between buildings, just this great open space with its dead, grassless, red-clay face.

Fiction book (2000)
We roared down Route 2 at a crazy tilt, wheels sinking into a shallow red clay ditch.

Fiction book (1992)
John would plow the red-clay soil later anyway for a fall seeding of turnip salad, collards, and mustards.

Fiction book (1995)

Surface Forms

red clay singular

red clays plural

Morphology

red + clay

This is a straightforward adjective + noun combination: 'red' (a color) modifies 'clay' (a type of earth), so the meaning — clay that is red — is directly derivable from the constituents. The compositional pattern is common across languages and follows standard English adjective–noun formation, making it readily understandable to a B1 learner who knows both words.

Etymology

Red clay comes from the simple image of red and clay, meaning the sticky earth that looks red because it holds iron (like rust). So it refers to the kind of clay that is red and often sticky, used for making pots or for tennis courts.