Earthen
adj, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 to provide or add soil to transitive
"Their inter-tillage operations, earthening-up of some crops and tillage in orchard/gardens or plantation crops, are stated below, under special cropping system in different situations."
- 2 to make earthly or earthlike transitive
"It deadens,—or earthens—the spirit in both directions."
- 1 Made of earth or mud.
"1826, James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans A hundred earthen dwellings stood on the margin of the lake […]"
- 2 Made of clay. especially
"1589, Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation ... the Godfathers and Godmothers follow into the midst of the Church, where there is a small table ready set, and on it an earthen pot ful of warme water, […]"
- 3 Earthly. archaic
"Will they be yours when one by one these earthen / Delights and comforts and all beauties wane? / Will they be found laid up above, illumined?"
- 1 made of earth (or baked clay) wordnet
Example
More examples"When I moved into my new home, I just brought with me the things that I needed for cooking, an earthen rice cooker, an earthenware pot and an earthen charcoal brazier."
Etymology
From Middle English erthen, urthen, from Old English eorþen, yrþen, ierþen (“made of earth”), from Proto-Germanic *irþīnaz. Cognate with Dutch aarden (“earthen”), German irden (“earthen”). By surface analysis, earth + -en (“made of”).
From earth + -en (“to make like”).
Related phrases
More for "earthen"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.