dial. Also 8 lack. A hard subsoil of clay or gravel. Also attrib., as lack-clay: leck-stone, a granular variety of trap rock used in some parts of Scotland for the slabs of ovens.
1780. A. Young, Tour Irel., I. 199. Immediately under the moor, is a thin stratum of what they call lack-clay, which is like baked clay, the thickness of a tile.
1813. R. Kerr, Agric. Surv. Berwick, 41. A half lapidified tough and compact clay, called leck by the quarriers.
1862. Page, Adv. Text-bk. Geol., vii. 126. Before the improved manufacture of fire-bricks, some open-textured varieties [of greenstone], known as ‘leck-stones,’ were largely used for the linings and soles of ovens.
1899. Dickinson & Prevost, Cumberld. Gloss., Leck, a hard subsoil of clay and gravel.
