fuller's earth

1. 1.

   an absorbent soil resembling clay; used in fulling (shrinking and thickening) woolen cloth and as an adsorbent

   Broadersoil

Questions about fuller's earth

What does fuller's earth mean?

fuller's earth means "an absorbent soil resembling clay; used in fulling (shrinking and thickening) woolen cloth and as an adsorbent".

Is fuller's earth a common word?

fuller's earth is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.