clayey

Etymology

From Middle English cleii, cleyye (“clayish; messy; unclean”) [and other forms], either: * from Middle English clei, cley (“clay; clayey soil; clay-containing material used as mortar or plaster”) [and other forms] + -i (suffix forming adjectives); clei, cley is derived from Old English clǣġ (“clay”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gleh₁y-, *gley- (“to smear; to stick; glue; putty”); or * from Old English clǣig (“clayey”), from clǣġ (“clay”) (see above) + -iġ (suffix forming adjectives). The English word is equivalent to clay + -y (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘having the quality of’), with the -e- included to avoid the occurrence of -yy. Sense 4 (“of the human body, as contrasted with the soul”) may allude to the biblical account of God creating man from earth; see Genesis 2:7 (King James Version; spelling modernized): “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”

adj

1. Composed of clay or containing (much) clay; clayish.
   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,[…], →OCLC, 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
2. Covered or dirtied with clay.
3. Resembling clay; claylike, clayish.
4. (figurative) Of the human body, as contrasted with the soul; bodily, human, mortal.