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

"A clod and a ruffian," declared the prince.

From "The Whipping Boy" by Sid Fleischman

Digging in soggy conditions can damage a soil’s structure, creating impenetrable clods that hinder roots.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 11, 2023

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

From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2022

When you play sports on grass fields, it’s inevitable that you’ll bring home clods of dirt stuck to your cleats: Call them shoevenirs.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 23, 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

A pale figure rises, little clods of earth from the milpita soundlessly crumbling off the small body.

From "Beast Rider" by Tony Johnston & María Elena Fontanot de Rhoads