Word for the Wise : Pottery terms
March 10th, 2010
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Author: Uhrichsville, Ohio, which bills itself as the Clay Center of the World, begins its National Clay Week Festival today. Humans have been using that earthy, plastic material for more than a thousand years; today we look at some old words still used to talk about materials argillic (that is, "of or relating to clay").
Potters have a number of special terms for clay-specific processes. For example, the process of making slip, a mixture of clay and water used to both decorate and cement clay, is known as blunging. The verb blunge (meaning "to beat up and mix in water") is itself a mix of blend plus plunge; the clay-based noun slip has an ancestor in the Old English word for "slime."
Once slip is applied to
Potters have a number of special terms for clay-specific processes. For example, the process of making slip, a mixture of clay and water used to both decorate and cement clay, is known as blunging. The verb blunge (meaning "to beat up and mix in water") is itself a mix of blend plus plunge; the clay-based noun slip has an ancestor in the Old English word for "slime."
Once slip is applied to
pottery (either as decoration or to improve its surface texture) it is called engobe. That name comes from French, where the verb engober means "to cover with slip." Another French borrowing potters use is malaxage, which means "knead" in French; in English it names the act of softening clay by moistening and working it.
The process of trimming off excess clay at the seams of cast and partly dried pottery ware is known as fettling, after the Middle English verb meaning "to shape or prepare." The Latin lutum, meaning "mud" or "clay," gave us the verb lute, which means "to fill a crevice in half-dry ceramic ware with wet clay." If to lute is to seal, it makes sense that the term for "taking the clay from something" is unlute.
Don't let your questions slip by; write us. Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.
Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD's including Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged.
The process of trimming off excess clay at the seams of cast and partly dried pottery ware is known as fettling, after the Middle English verb meaning "to shape or prepare." The Latin lutum, meaning "mud" or "clay," gave us the verb lute, which means "to fill a crevice in half-dry ceramic ware with wet clay." If to lute is to seal, it makes sense that the term for "taking the clay from something" is unlute.
Don't let your questions slip by; write us. Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.
Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD's including Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged.
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Tags: clay-specific processes, Pottery terms, relating to clay, Word For The Wise