clod

Whether it's a twig, a pebble or a clod of dirt, the randomness you get on a large scale is the same.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 12, 2024

Tau proteins play an important role in stabilizing neurons, but with age, they can start to clod together, forming tangles that are neurotoxic and can jam themselves into the entire intracellular space of a neuron.

From Salon ● Dec. 20, 2022

The one of Rizzo, which was taken down on June 2, makes him look like a misshapen clod in an awkwardly buttoned jacket.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2020

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were. as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were.

From New York Times ● Jan. 4, 2018

The clod of mud hit Tristran in the chest.

From "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman

As Teichman looked on, a few farmhands gingerly coaxed the cuttings out of the plastic sleeves, exposing young roots tangled in clods of soil.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2023

It might form big clods that damage the crop or cut it into pieces.

From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2022

I’ve had plenty of experience trying to fend off these clods for years.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 2, 2018

When it comes to mitigating climate change, soil scientists are most interested in what Silver calls occluded carbon — organic material, often in the form of dead microbes, trapped in clods of dirt.

From New York Times ● Apr. 18, 2018

I wiped it down, making sure to remove clods of dried mud and clumps of grass from the undercarriage and chipping the dried dirt off the pictures of the rabbit and the turtle.

From "Lawn Boy Returns" by Gary Paulsen