The pottery terms beginners meet first describe clay’s stages and its firings. Greenware is unfired clay, leather hard is firm but still carvable, bone dry is ready for the kiln, and bisque is clay fired once without glaze. Slip is liquid clay, wedging is kneading clay to remove air, and a cone measures how much heat a firing delivered.

Pottery Terms: A Plain-English Pottery Glossary

By the Le Studio Art Space team, reviewed by the ceramic studio team. Updated 28 October 2026.

Walk into any studio and you’ll hear pottery terms that sound like a secret language: bisque, cone 6, leather hard, crawling, grog. This glossary explains 88 of them in plain English, each with a short definition you can read in a few seconds and a full page when you want more.

Search for a word, or jump to a letter. Every definition is written to stand on its own, so you can share it with a classmate or quote it in your own notes.

Showing all 88 terms.

A

Absorption (also water absorption, porosity): Absorption is the percentage of water a piece of fired clay soaks up, measured by weighing it dry, soaking it and weighing it again. Low absorption means a dense, strong, watertight body; high absorption means an open, porous one.
Agateware (also agate ware): Agateware is pottery made from two or more differently coloured clays layered, folded or marbled together, so the swirled pattern runs right through the clay rather than sitting on the surface like a glaze or slip.

B

Ball clay: Ball clay is a very fine-grained, highly plastic sedimentary clay added to clay bodies and glazes for workability and strength. It usually fires a light cream or off-white colour and rarely gets used on its own because it shrinks a lot.
Banding wheel (also banding wheels): A banding wheel is a small, hand-turned turntable that lets you spin a piece while you build, decorate or glaze it. Unlike a pottery wheel it has no motor, so it turns only as fast as you push it.
Bat (also bats, throwing bat): A bat is a flat, removable disc that attaches to the wheel head so you can throw on it and lift the finished piece off without touching the soft clay. Bats are usually made of plastic, MDF, plywood or plaster.
Bisque (also bisqueware, biscuit, bisque firing): Bisque is clay that has been fired once, without glaze, to make it hard and porous enough to handle and glaze safely. The bisque firing is usually around cone 06 to 04, roughly 1000 to 1060 °C.
Bone china: Bone china is a very white, translucent and strong type of porcelain made with a large proportion of bone ash, traditionally around half the recipe. It is almost always slip cast and fired on specialist schedules.
Bone dry (also bone-dry): Bone dry is the stage when unfired clay has lost all the water it can lose at room temperature. It is lighter in colour, no longer cool to the touch, very fragile, and ready for the bisque firing.
Burnishing (also burnished): Burnishing is polishing leather-hard or bone-dry clay with a smooth, hard tool such as a stone, spoon or the back of a ladle, so the surface particles line up and the fired piece has a soft sheen without any glaze.

C

Candling (also candle): Candling is holding a kiln at a low temperature, below the boiling point of water, for several hours at the start of a firing, so any moisture left in the clay leaves slowly instead of turning to steam and cracking the work.
Casting slip: Casting slip is liquid clay made with a deflocculant so it stays fluid with relatively little water. It is poured into plaster moulds for slip casting, where the plaster draws out water and a clay wall forms against the mould.
Celadon (also celadons): Celadon is a family of translucent glazes, usually soft green, blue or grey, that get their colour from a small amount of iron oxide. Traditional celadons are fired in reduction, and they pool darker where the glaze runs thick.
Centring (also centering): Centring is the first step of throwing: pressing a lump of clay on the spinning wheel until it runs perfectly true around the centre of the wheel head, with no wobble. Everything you throw afterwards depends on it.
Clay body (also clay bodies): A clay body is a blended clay recipe made for pottery, combining natural clays with materials such as feldspar, silica and grog so it throws or builds well and matures at a particular firing temperature.
Coil building (also coiling, coil pot): Coil building is a hand-building method where you roll clay into long ropes and stack them, joining each coil to the one below, to build up the walls of a pot. It allows forms of almost any size or shape.
Compression: Compression is pressing clay firmly with a rib, sponge or fingers to pack the particles together, especially across the base of a thrown pot and along rims and slab edges. It is the main defence against S-cracks and edge cracks.
Coning (also coning up): Coning is pushing centred clay up into a tall cone on the spinning wheel and then pressing it back down, once or several times, to even out the clay, work out lumps and air, and help it run true before you open it.
Crawling (also glaze crawling): Crawling is a glaze fault where the melting glaze pulls back into beads or islands, leaving bare patches of clay. It usually starts before the firing, when the dried glaze coat cracks or doesn’t bond to the bisque.
Crazing (also crazed glaze): Crazing is a network of fine cracks in a fired glaze, caused when the glaze contracts more than the clay underneath as it cools. It can appear straight out of the kiln or develop weeks or months later.

D

Deflocculant (also deflocculants, Darvan, sodium silicate): A deflocculant is a chemical added in tiny amounts to clay slip or glaze to make the particles repel each other, so the mixture becomes fluid with much less water. Sodium silicate and Darvan are the most common.
Dunting (also dunt, dunts): Dunting is cracking caused by stress while a kiln heats or cools, especially through quartz inversion around 573 °C. Dunts are usually clean, sharp cracks that can run right through the clay and glaze.

E

Earthenware: Earthenware is low-fired pottery clay, usually glaze fired around cone 06 to 04 (about 1000 to 1060 °C). It stays porous after firing, so it needs glaze to hold water, and is often red terracotta, though white and buff earthenwares exist.
Electric kiln (also electric kilns): An electric kiln heats pottery with coiled metal elements set into its walls, much like an oven. It is the most common kiln in home and community studios, fires in an oxygen-rich atmosphere and is controlled by a programmable controller.
Engobe (also engobes): An engobe is a coloured or white slip, adjusted with materials such as feldspar and silica, that is applied to clay to change its surface colour or texture. It sits between a plain slip and a glaze.

F

Feldspar (also feldspars): Feldspar is a group of common minerals that melt at high temperatures and act as a flux in clay bodies and glazes. It helps stoneware and porcelain fuse into a dense body and is a key ingredient in many high-fire glazes.
Fire clay (also fireclay): Fire clay is a heat-resistant clay with a high melting point, often coarse and containing iron and other impurities. It is added to stoneware, sculpture and raku bodies for strength and texture, and used to make kiln bricks.
Firing schedule (also firing schedules, firing program): A firing schedule is the plan for a kiln firing: the rates at which the temperature rises or falls in each segment, the temperatures it heads for, and any holds. Kiln controllers run schedules automatically.
Food safe (also food-safe, food safe glaze): Food safe describes fired pottery whose glaze and clay are suitable for contact with food and drink: the glaze is durable, fits the clay without crazing, doesn’t leach harmful amounts of metals, and the clay is fired dense.
Foot ring (also foot, footring): A foot ring is the raised ring of clay on the underside of a bowl, cup or plate, usually trimmed from the thick base at leather hard. It lifts the piece, gives it a neat base and leaves the bottom unglazed where it touches the shelf.
Frit (also frits): A frit is a glaze ingredient made by melting raw materials into glass, cooling it quickly and grinding it to powder. Fritting makes soluble or toxic materials stable and insoluble, and gives glazes a reliable melt.

G

Gas kiln (also gas kilns): A gas kiln heats pottery by burning natural gas or LPG with burners, venting the gases through a flue or chimney. Potters can control the flame and air to fire in reduction, which gives effects electric kilns can’t easily match.
Glaze (also glazes): A glaze is a thin layer of glass fused to the surface of pottery in a kiln. It is applied as a liquid mix of powdered minerals and water, and melts in the firing to make the piece colourful, smooth and, when made for it, watertight.
Glaze firing (also glost firing, glaze fire): A glaze firing, also called a glost firing, is the kiln firing that melts glaze onto bisqueware. For stoneware and porcelain it is usually the hottest firing, to around cone 6 or cone 10, and it also matures the clay.
Glaze fit: Glaze fit is how well a glaze matches the clay underneath in how much each expands and contracts with heat. A good fit leaves the glaze under slight compression; a poor fit causes crazing or shivering.
Greenware: Greenware is pottery that has been shaped but not yet fired, at any stage from freshly made to bone dry. It is fragile and can still be softened back into clay with water, unlike fired bisqueware.
Grog (also grogged): Grog is fired clay ground into sand-like particles and mixed into a clay body. It gives the clay tooth and strength, helps it dry and fire more evenly, and reduces shrinkage, cracking and warping.

H

High fire (also high-fire, cone 10): High fire refers to firing pottery to about cone 9 to 10, roughly 1280 to 1300 °C, the traditional range for stoneware and porcelain. It produces very dense, durable ware and is often done in gas kilns with reduction.

K

Kaolin (also china clay): Kaolin, also called china clay, is a pure white clay mineral that fires white and has a very high melting point. It is the main ingredient of porcelain and a common source of alumina in glazes.
Kiln (also kilns): A kiln is an insulated chamber that heats pottery to high temperatures to turn clay into ceramic and melt glazes. Studio kilns are usually electric or gas fired and reach about 1100 to 1300 °C.
Kiln furniture (also kiln shelves, kiln posts, kiln shelf): Kiln furniture is the shelves, posts and stilts used to stack pottery in a kiln. Shelves hold the work in layers, posts set the gaps between shelves, and stilts or cookies support pieces that need lifting off a shelf.
Kiln wash (also shelf wash): Kiln wash is a refractory coating, usually a mix of alumina or silica with kaolin, painted onto the top of kiln shelves. It stops dripping glaze from fusing to the shelf, so drips can be chipped away instead of ruining it.

L

Leather hard (also leather-hard): Leather hard is the drying stage when clay has firmed up enough to hold its shape and be handled, but still has enough moisture to carve, trim and join. It feels cool and firm, like hard cheese or leather.
Loop tool (also loop tools, trimming tool): A loop tool is a hand tool with a loop of metal wire or ribbon on a handle, used to trim, carve and hollow out clay. Potters use them to trim foot rings on the wheel and to scoop out the inside of solid forms.
Low fire (also low-fire): Low fire means firing pottery to about cone 06 to 04, roughly 1000 to 1060 °C. It is the range for earthenware, terracotta and many bright commercial glazes and underglazes, and the usual range for bisque firings.

M

Majolica (also maiolica, faience): Majolica is a way of decorating earthenware with a white, opaque tin-style glaze and then painting colours on top of the unfired glaze, so the brushwork fuses into the surface in a single low firing.
Mid fire (also mid-fire, cone 6): Mid fire means firing pottery to about cone 5 to 6, roughly 1200 to 1225 °C. It is now the most common range for stoneware and porcelain in electric kilns, giving durable ware with less energy and kiln wear than cone 10.
Mishima (also slip inlay): Mishima is a slip inlay technique where you carve or stamp fine lines into leather-hard clay, fill them with contrasting slip or underglaze, then scrape the surface clean so the colour stays only in the lines.

O

Oxidation firing (also oxidation, oxidising atmosphere): Oxidation firing is firing a kiln with plenty of oxygen in the atmosphere, as electric kilns naturally do. Glazes and clays fire to clean, consistent colours, because oxides of iron, copper and other metals stay in their oxidised form.

P

Paper clay (also paperclay): Paper clay is clay mixed with a proportion of fine paper pulp. The fibres make it lighter and much stronger when dry, so it is easier to join, repair and build thin or large forms, and the paper burns away in the firing.
Pinch pot (also pinch pots, pinching): A pinch pot is a small pot made by pressing your thumb into a ball of clay and pinching the walls thinner and higher as you turn it in your hand. It is the simplest hand-building technique and a classic first project.
Pinholing (also pinholes, pinhole): Pinholing is a glaze fault where tiny holes or pits appear in the fired glaze, usually reaching down towards the clay. They form when gas bubbles burst through the melting glaze late in the firing and don’t heal over.
Plaster mould (also mould, moulds, plaster moulds, mold): A plaster mould is a shaped block of pottery plaster used to form clay, either by pouring liquid slip into it for slip casting or by pressing soft clay into or over it. The absorbent plaster draws water from the clay.
Plasticity (also plastic clay): Plasticity is clay’s ability to be shaped under pressure and hold its new shape without cracking or slumping. Highly plastic clays bend and stretch easily; short, less plastic clays crack and tear when you push them.
Porcelain: Porcelain is a white, dense clay body based on kaolin, feldspar and silica, fired to mid or high temperatures until it becomes almost glass-like. It can be translucent where thin and is prized for fine, bright, delicate ware.
Pulling (also pulling up, pulling walls): Pulling is raising the walls of a pot on the wheel by squeezing the clay between your fingers inside and out and drawing it upwards, so the wall gets thinner and taller with each pass. Pulling handles from a lump of clay uses a similar motion.
Pyrometric cone (also cone, cones, Orton cone): A pyrometric cone is a small, slender cone of ceramic material made to soften and bend at a known amount of heatwork. Potters use cones to measure firings, and to name firing ranges, such as cone 06 or cone 6.

Q

Quartz inversion (also silica inversion): Quartz inversion is the sudden change in the crystal structure of quartz at about 573 °C, which makes it expand on heating and shrink on cooling by a small but abrupt amount. Passing through it too quickly can crack pottery.

R

Raku (also raku firing): Raku is a fast, low-temperature firing in which glazed pieces are lifted from the kiln while glowing hot and often placed in combustible material such as sawdust or paper. The smoke and sudden cooling create crackle, smoke and metallic effects.
Reclaim (also reclaimed clay, reclaiming clay, recycling clay): Reclaim is unfired scrap clay, trimmings and slurry collected and turned back into workable clay. The scraps are dried, soaked into a slurry, then dried back to a throwing consistency on plaster or fabric and wedged.
Reduction firing (also reduction, reduced): Reduction firing is firing a fuel-burning kiln with too little air, so the flames pull oxygen from the clay and glazes. It changes how colouring metals behave, giving effects such as celadon greens, copper reds and toasty flashed stoneware.
Rib (also ribs, potter’s rib): A rib is a flat, hand-held tool used to shape, smooth and compress clay. Ribs are made of wood, metal, rubber or plastic in many shapes, and are used on the wheel and in hand building.

S

S-crack (also S-cracks, S crack): An S-crack is a curved or S-shaped crack across the base of a thrown pot. Digitalfire calls it the classic sign of uneven drying: the rim dries and shrinks before the thicker base, which tears.
Saggar firing (also saggar, sagger): Saggar firing is enclosing pottery in a protective container, or saggar, with combustible and colouring materials such as sawdust, salt, copper and banana peel, so the fumes mark the surface with smoky, flashed colour during the firing.
Scoring (also score and slip, slip and score): Scoring is scratching criss-cross lines into two clay surfaces before joining them with slip, so the clay knits together. Score and slip is the standard way to attach handles, coils, slabs and other parts.
Sgraffito: Sgraffito is a decorating technique where you scratch or carve through a layer of coloured slip or underglaze to reveal the contrasting clay underneath. The name comes from the Italian for scratched.
Shivering (also glaze shivering): Shivering is a glaze fault where slivers of glaze flake away from a pot, usually at rims, edges and handles. It happens when the glaze shrinks much less than the clay on cooling and is squeezed until it pops off.
Shrinkage (also clay shrinkage): Shrinkage is how much clay gets smaller as it dries and fires, given as a percentage of its wet size. Most stoneware shrinks about 10 to 14% in total, roughly half in drying and half in the firing.
Silica (also quartz, flint, crystalline silica): Silica is silicon dioxide, the main glass-forming ingredient in glazes and a major part of every clay. As fine dust it is a serious health hazard, because breathing crystalline silica can cause silicosis and lung cancer.
Slab building (also slab pottery, slabs): Slab building is a hand-building method where clay is rolled into flat sheets, or slabs, which are cut and joined to make pieces such as plates, boxes, mugs and vases. Slabs can be used soft and curved or stiff and straight-sided.
Slip (also slips): Slip is clay mixed with water to a creamy liquid. Potters use it as glue for joining clay, as a decorative coating in white or coloured layers, and, when made with a deflocculant, as casting slip for moulds.
Slip casting (also casting, slipcasting): Slip casting is making pottery by pouring liquid casting slip into a plaster mould. The plaster absorbs water, a clay wall builds up inside, and the extra slip is poured out, leaving a hollow piece that is removed once it firms.
Slip trailing (also slip trailer, trailing): Slip trailing is decorating pottery by squeezing lines and dots of slip from a nozzle bottle or bulb onto leather-hard clay, much like piping icing. The raised lines stay on the surface after firing.
Soak (also hold, soaking): A soak, or hold, is a period in a firing when the kiln is held at a set temperature instead of rising or falling. Potters soak at the top of a glaze firing so the glaze can smooth out, and at low temperatures to dry work.
Specific gravity (also SG): Specific gravity is the weight of a volume of glaze or slip compared with the same volume of water. Potters measure it to keep glaze and casting slip at a consistent thickness, so results stay the same from batch to batch.
Sprigging (also sprig, sprigs): Sprigging is decorating pottery with small, separately moulded clay shapes, called sprigs, that are pressed from a mould and attached to the surface with slip. Classic Wedgwood jasperware is the best-known example.
Stoneware: Stoneware is a strong, dense clay body fired to mid or high temperatures, about cone 5 to 10 (roughly 1200 to 1300 °C), until it is nearly watertight. It is the most common clay for functional pottery and usually fires buff, grey or brown.

T

Tenmoku (also temmoku): Tenmoku is a family of glossy, dark iron glazes, usually deep brown to black, that break to rusty brown where the glaze thins over edges and texture. They contain a high proportion of iron oxide.
Terra sigillata (also terra sig): Terra sigillata is a very fine slip made from only the smallest clay particles, separated by letting a thin slip settle and siphoning off the top layer. Applied thinly and polished, it gives a silky, low-sheen surface without glaze.
Terracotta (also terra cotta): Terracotta is red-firing earthenware clay, coloured by iron, fired at low temperatures and often left unglazed. The name is Italian for baked earth, and it is used for garden pots, tiles, sculpture and rustic tableware.
Test tile (also test tiles): A test tile is a small piece of fired clay used to try a glaze, slip or firing before using it on real work. Good test tiles stand upright, have texture and an edge, and are made from the same clay as your pots.
Throwing (also wheel throwing, thrown): Throwing is making pottery on a spinning potter’s wheel by centring a lump of clay, opening it and pulling up the walls with your hands. It produces round, symmetrical forms such as mugs, bowls, plates and vases.
Trimming (also turning): Trimming is shaving excess clay from a thrown pot once it is leather hard, usually upside down on the wheel, to refine its shape, even out the walls and carve a foot ring. In Britain it is also called turning.

U

Underglaze (also underglazes): Underglaze is a coloured decorating material, a clay-based slip with stains, that is painted onto greenware or bisque and usually covered with clear glaze. It doesn’t run or move in the firing, so painted details stay crisp.

V

Vitrification (also vitrified, vitreous): Vitrification is the change clay goes through at high temperatures as part of it melts into glass that binds the remaining particles and fills the pores. A vitrified body is dense, strong and absorbs very little water.

W

Warping (also warped, slumping): Warping is when a pot bends out of its intended shape, such as a round rim going oval or a plate dishing down, during drying or firing. It usually comes from uneven drying, uneven walls, overfiring or poor support in the kiln.
Wax resist (also wax, waxing): Wax resist is a water-based wax emulsion or melted wax brushed onto bisqueware to stop glaze sticking where it is applied. It keeps feet and lids free of glaze and creates decorative patterns, then burns away in the firing.
Wedging (also wedge, wedged): Wedging is kneading clay by hand on a bench to remove air pockets, even out its moisture and align its particles before you throw or build. Ram’s head and spiral wedging are the two most common methods.
Witness cone (also witness cones, cone pack): A witness cone is a pyrometric cone placed in the kiln where you can see it, or find it after the firing, to show how much heatwork the load received. Potters often set three cones together as a cone pack.

This tool at a glance

What it does: Explains the pottery terms you’ll hear in a studio, class or firing service, in plain English.
Inputs: A search word, or a letter from the A-Z bar.
Method: Every term is listed on this page. The search shows the terms whose name or other names start with or contain what you type; with three letters or more it also searches the definitions.
Outputs: Matching terms with a 30 to 50 word definition each, and a link to a full page with a longer explanation, related terms and a tool or guide.

How the pottery glossary works

Every term in the glossary has two parts: a short definition of 30 to 50 words that answers the question on its own, and a separate page with a fuller explanation, related terms and a link to a tool or guide that puts the idea to work.

The search box filters the list as you type. Short searches look only at term names, so typing “sl” shows slip, slab building and slip casting rather than every definition with those letters in it. From three letters, it also searches inside the definitions, which helps when you remember what something does but not what it’s called. Your search is saved in the page address, so you can share a filtered list.

We’ve included alternative names where potters use more than one, such as bisque and biscuit, glaze firing and glost firing, or kaolin and china clay. We use Australian spelling throughout, and the search also finds the American spellings you’ll see on imported products and videos. If a term you need is missing, our pottery workshops and classes are a great place to ask, and we add terms as they come up.

Pottery terms for the stages of clay

The most useful pottery terms to learn first are the names for each stage clay passes through, because every instruction in a studio depends on them. Clay is plastic when it’s soft enough to shape, leather hard when it’s firm but still carvable, and bone dry when all the water it can lose in the air has gone.

All of those unfired stages are called greenware, which can still be softened back into clay and reclaimed. After its first firing it becomes bisque, hard and porous, ready for glaze. After the glaze firing it’s finished ware.

A potter in an apron leans over a wheel, shaping a wide bowl from wet clay. — Throwing, centring and pulling are three of the first words every wheel student learns. Photo: Yan Krukau on Pexels.

Knowing the stage tells you what you can do. Handles go on at leather hard, trimming happens at leather hard, carving is easiest at leather hard, and nothing goes in the kiln until it’s bone dry. Our guide to the stages of clay from wet to fired walks through the whole journey with photos.

Firing and kiln terms

Firing terms describe how hot a kiln goes and how it gets there. The temperature range is usually named by a cone number: low fire is around cone 06 to 04, mid fire around cone 5 to 6, and high fire around cone 9 to 10. Lower cone numbers with a zero in front, like 06, are cooler than plain numbers, so cone 06 is far cooler than cone 6.

A firing schedule sets how fast the kiln heats and cools, a soak or hold keeps it steady at one temperature, and candling is a slow, low start that drives out moisture. Electric kilns fire in oxidation, with plenty of oxygen; gas kilns can also fire in reduction, which changes glaze colours. Our pyrometric cone chart gives the temperature for every cone, and the kiln firing service at Le Studio Art Space can tell you which cones its loads run to.

Glaze and decorating terms

Glaze is glass fused to the surface of a pot, while underglaze, slip and engobe are clay-based colours that sit under or instead of glaze. That difference explains why underglaze painting stays crisp in the kiln while a runny glaze can move several millimetres.

Decorating terms usually describe a technique: sgraffito scratches through slip, mishima inlays colour into carved lines, slip trailing pipes raised lines, and wax resist keeps areas free of glaze. Fault names describe what went wrong: crawling is glaze pulling into beads, pinholing is tiny holes, crazing is a web of cracks, and shivering is glaze flaking off edges.

Hands cutting square tiles from a rolled clay slab on a studio work table. — Slab, leather hard and greenware all describe clay at this stage. Photo: Yan Krukau on Pexels.

If you’re trying to fix a fault rather than name it, the pottery fault finder asks when you noticed the problem and what it looks like, then lists the likely causes.

Ceramic terms beginners often mix up

A handful of ceramic terms get confused all the time, usually because they sound alike or describe neighbouring steps. Sorting them out early saves a lot of puzzled conversations.

Centring and coning both happen at the start of throwing, but centring is getting the clay to run true and coning is pushing it up and down to help that happen. Bisque and glaze firing are two separate firings, and for stoneware the glaze firing is the hotter one. Crazing and crackle look the same, but crackle is crazing done on purpose, on decorative work. Clay and clay body aren’t quite the same either: a clay body is a recipe blended for pottery, not clay straight from the ground.

The trickiest pair is food safe and glazed. A glazed pot isn’t automatically food safe; the glaze has to be made for food use, fit the clay without crazing, and be fired to its proper cone.

Two more that trip people up are slip and glaze, and grog and grit. Slip is liquid clay, so it fires to a matte, clay-like surface, while glaze melts into glass. Grog is fired clay ground up and added on purpose to strengthen a body, whereas grit or lumps in a clay are usually contamination that can cause blowouts or rough patches. When a teacher mentions either, it’s worth asking which one they mean.

Talking to a studio or firing service

A few pottery terms make life much easier when you hand work over to someone else. Tell them the clay body and its cone, whether the piece is greenware or bisque, and which glazes you used and how thickly.

A firing service needs bone-dry work for a bisque and glazed bisqueware with clean feet for a glaze firing. Mention anything thick, enclosed or freshly made, because those pieces need a slower firing, and ask which cone the next load is going to. In our experience, a two-minute conversation using the right words prevents most of the disappointments people bring back to the studio.

It helps to write the details on a slip of paper that travels with your work: your name, the clay, the cone, the glazes and anything unusual about the piece. Studios fire dozens of pieces at once, and a clear note means yours goes into the right load. If you’re not sure of a term on a studio’s firing form, look it up here or simply ask, because every potter had to learn these words once.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to learn all these pottery terms before my first class?

Not at all. Most people pick them up naturally in a few sessions. If you know greenware, leather hard, bone dry, bisque and glaze, you’ll follow almost everything a teacher says on day one.

Why do some pottery words have two spellings?

Many pottery terms come from different countries and trades, so British, Australian and American potters sometimes spell or name them differently, such as centring and centering, or mould and mold. We use Australian spelling and list the other names alongside each term so the search finds them.

Are these definitions accurate enough to rely on?

They’re written as plain-English explanations and checked against references such as Digitalfire and Ceramic Arts Network. For your own clay, glaze and kiln, the maker’s data sheet always takes priority over a general definition.

What’s the difference between ceramics and pottery?

Ceramics is the broad term for anything made from clay and hardened by heat, including tiles, sculpture and industrial parts. Pottery usually means vessels such as mugs, bowls and vases, so all pottery is ceramics but not all ceramics is pottery.

Can I suggest a term for the glossary?

Yes, please do. Mention it to the team at Le Studio Art Space next time you’re in the studio or through the contact page, and we’ll add terms that come up often.

Can I use these definitions in my class notes?

You’re welcome to quote a definition with a link back to the glossary. If you teach, the embed code below lets you add the searchable glossary to your own site.

Sources and method

Definitions were written by the Le Studio Art Space team and checked against Digitalfire’s reference library, Ceramic Arts Network articles and Orton’s cone charts. Specific figures, such as cone temperatures and quartz inversion at about 573 °C, cite their source on the term’s own page. Silica dust guidance follows WorkSafe Victoria and SafeWork NSW.

Definitions are simplified for clarity. Clay, glaze and kiln behaviour varies between makers and studios.

Figures last checked 28 October 2026.

This pottery glossary from Le Studio Art Space is general educational content. Definitions are simplified for beginners; clay, glaze and kiln makers’ data take priority for your own materials. Always follow the clay and glaze manufacturer’s data, and for glaze and food safety decisions follow the manufacturer’s guidance and local regulations.