Definition of "clayey"

The shores of the rivers and creeks are chiefly planted with coffee, to the distance of about 30 miles from the sea; thence 30 miles farther up, the soil becomes clayey and more fit for sugar[-]canes.

1812, Antonio de Alcedo, “DEMERARA”, in G[eorge] A[lexander] Thompson, transl., The Geographical and Historical Dictionary of America and the West Indies. […], volume II, London: […] [Harding and Wright] for James Carpenter, […], page 13, column 2

She had walked over rotted, decaying, splintered planks covered with clayey soil: […]

1994, Juan Rulfo, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, Pedro Páramo, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, page 90

Limestone, of course, is calcium carbonate, and thus chemically utterly different in composition from the clayey rocks below and the hard, pebbly ones above.

2004, Richard Fortey, “Alps”, in The Earth: An Intimate History, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, pages 99 and 101

Wheat-fields, one would think, cannot come to grow untilled; no man made clayey, or made weary thereby;—unless machinery will do it?

1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Astreæa Redux”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, book II (The Paper Age), page 31

Death, grim Death, will fold / Me, in his leaden Arms, and preſs me cloſe / To his cold clayie Breaſt: […]

1697, [William] Congreve, The Mourning Bride, a Tragedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], Act II, page 17

This purifing of wit, this enritching of memory, enabling of iudgment, and enlarging of conceyt, which commonly we call learning, […] the final end is, to lead and draw vs to as high a perfection, as our degenerate ſoules made worſe by their clayey lodgings, can be capable of.

a. 1587 (date written), Phillip Sidney [i.e., Philip Sidney], An Apologie for Poetrie. […], London: […] [James Roberts] for Henry Olney, […], published 1595; republished as Edward Arber, editor, An Apologie for Poetrie (English Reprints), London: [Alexander Murray & Son], 1 April 1868, page 29

[A]mid these tombs, / Cold as their clayey tenants, know, my heart / Must never grow to stone!

1796, Robert Southey, “Book the Eighth”, in Joan of Arc, an Epic Poem, Bristol: […] Bulgin and Rosser, for Joseph Cottle, […], and Cadell and Davies, and G. G. and J. Robinson, […], page 306

To low estate of clayey creature, / See, I bring the beggar's meed, / Nutriment beyond the need!An English translation by Browning of “Soul and Body”, a poem by Gregory of Nazianzus.

1842, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets”, in Essays on the Greek Christian Poets and the English Poets, New York, N.Y.: James Miller, (successor to C. S. Francis & Co.,) […], published 1863, page 50

[W]hen between sheets, whether by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness of being in bed. Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if, darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Nightgown”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, pages 59–60