Clay vs. Marl — What's the Difference?

Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals. Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay particles, but become hard, brittle and non–plastic upon drying or firing.

Marl or marlstone is a carbonate-rich mud or mudstone which contains variable amounts of clays and silt. The term was originally loosely applied to a variety of materials, most of which occur as loose, earthy deposits consisting chiefly of an intimate mixture of clay and calcium carbonate, formed under freshwater conditions.

A stiff, sticky fine-grained earth that can be moulded when wet, and is dried and baked to make bricks, pottery, and ceramics

A crumbly mixture of clays, calcium and magnesium carbonates, and remnants of shells that is sometimes found under desert sands and used as fertilizer for lime-deficient soils.

A European moth with yellowish-brown wings.

A yarn, especially a cotton yarn, having plies of different colors twisted together.

A fine-grained, firm earthy material that is plastic when wet and hardens when heated, consisting primarily of hydrated silicates of aluminum and widely used in making bricks, tiles, and pottery.

To fertilize with such a mixture.

A hardening or nonhardening material having a consistency similar to clay and used for modeling.

Made from this yarn

(Geology) A sedimentary material with grains smaller than 0.002 millimeter in diameter.

A mixed earthy substance, consisting of carbonate of lime, clay, and possibly sand, in very variable proportions, and accordingly designated as calcareous, clayey, or sandy.

Moist sticky earth; mud.

(transitive) To cover with the earthy substance called marl.

The human body as opposed to the spirit.

To cover, as part of a rope, with marline, marking a pecular hitch at each turn to prevent unwinding.

A mineral substance made up of small crystals of silica and alumina, that is ductile when moist; the material of pre-fired ceramics.

To overspread or manure with marl; as, to marl a field.

An earth material with ductile qualities.

A mixed earthy substance, consisting of carbonate of lime, clay, and sand, in very variable proportions, and accordingly designated as calcareous, clayey, or sandy. See Greensand.

(tennis) A tennis court surface made of crushed stone, brick, shale, or other unbound mineral aggregate.

A loose and crumbling earthy deposit consisting mainly of calcite or dolomite; used as a fertilizer for soils deficient in lime

(biblical) The material of the human body.

(geology) A particle less than 3.9 microns in diameter, following the Wentworth scale.

A clay pipe for smoking tobacco.

A clay pigeon.

(informal) Land or territory of a country or other political region, especially when subject to territorial claims

(transitive) To add clay to, to spread clay onto.

To purify using clay.

A soft earth, which is plastic, or may be molded with the hands, consisting of hydrous silicate of aluminium. It is the result of the wearing down and decomposition, in part, of rocks containing aluminous minerals, as granite. Lime, magnesia, oxide of iron, and other ingredients, are often present as impurities.

Earth in general, as representing the elementary particles of the human body; hence, the human body as formed from such particles.

To cover or manure with clay.

To clarify by filtering through clay, as sugar.

A very fine-grained soil that is plastic when moist but hard when fired

Water soaked soil; soft wet earth

United States general who commanded United States forces in Europe from 1945 to 1949 and who oversaw the Berlin airlift (1897-1978)

United States politician responsible for the Missouri Compromise between free and slave states (1777-1852)

The dead body of a human being