Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An unglazed hard-baked clay pottery
  • noun A reddish brown colour, like that of terra cotta.
  • adjective Of a reddish brown colour, like that of terra cotta.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Italian terra ("earth") + cotta ("baked")

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Examples

  • He began using cream-colored stationery embossed with his name in terra-cotta letters: RAYMOND CARVER.

    Raymond Carver Carol Sklenicka 2009

  • Do yourself a favor and eat at the big, terra-cotta colored restaurant right in the middle of town.

    Recommendations? 2009

  • Harry suggested a terra-cotta red and he was right.

    Bird Cloud Annie Proulx 2011

  • At Sitka & Spruce, braised lamb simmers with flageolet beans in a fireplace and ends up in a terra-cotta pot with grilled house-made merguez sausage, a poached egg from The Corson Building's chicken coop and a brown butter and walnut drizzle.

    Grilled Lamb Chops With Salsa Verde and Yogurt Sauce Kitty Greenwald 2011

  • Today, inside the terra-cotta colored building, giant trees stretch more than 20 meters into the air through a caved-in roof.

    Batavia's Down But Not Out Joe Cochrane 2011

  • And who could deny that this postcard-perfect landscape of vast blue waters and sloping green hills dotted with terra-cotta villas is anything but dazzling?

    Maria Russo: Glamour, Gardens and George Clooney in Lake Como Maria Russo 2011

  • The sight lines are such that as we take in a seventh-century 3½-foot vertical stele of Vishnu from northern or eastern India we also catch a glimpse of a terra-cotta roundel made some 200 years earlier.

    From Stillness, Cosmic Action Lee Lawrence 2011

  • Do yourself a favor and eat at the big, terra-cotta colored restaurant right in the middle of town.

    Recommendations? 2009

  • Do yourself a favor and eat at the big, terra-cotta colored restaurant right in the middle of town.

    Recommendations? 2009

  • A row of sculptures—from the tender, white marble "Alsatian Orphan" and patinated terra-cotta "Bust of a Woman" to the exuberant bronze "Head of Balzac"—lines the gallery's mantle.

    A Close-Up of a Master Lance Esplund 2011

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