從地裡來的材料
這一族就是字面：材料是土。差別只在於有沒有進過火。
adjective · B2
Made of soil or packed mud. It is used about floors, walls, banks and dams: parts of a building or a piece of land that are formed from earth rather than from wood, stone or concrete.
泥土做的
核心畫面
One way to hold earthen is to look at its two parts. Earth is the ground, and the old ending -en means made of, the same ending that gives wooden and golden. So the picture to keep is simple: whatever this describes came out of the ground. Packed down as it is, it becomes a floor, a wall, a bank, a dam. Shaped and then , it becomes a pot, a jar, a bowl. And in older writing the same ground gets turned on people: bodies and pleasures are called earthen because they come from the dust and do not last.
earthen 可以從兩個部分來想。earth 是土地，-en 是老英文表示「用什麼做的」的尾巴，跟 wooden（…更多收起
earthen 可以從兩個部分來想。earth 是土地，-en 是老英文表示「用什麼做的」的尾巴，跟 wooden（木頭做的）、golden（金做的）同一套。所以畫面很單純：這樣東西的材料是從地裡來的。土直接夯實壓平，就成了泥土地板、土牆、土堤、土壩。土先塑形、再進窯燒硬，就成了陶鍋、陶罐、陶碗。舊一點的文章裡，這個「土」還會被翻到人身上：身體和歡樂也被說成 earthen，因為都出於塵土，也都留不住。From the word’s history
Wiktionary traces earthen to Middle English erthen and Old English eorþen, made of earth, from Proto-Germanic irthinaz, with Dutch aarden and German irden as cognates, and analyses it as earth plus -en, made of.
Wiktionary 把 earthen 追到中古英文 erthen、古英文 eorþen（土做的），再上溯到原始日耳曼語 irthinaz，並列出荷蘭文 aarden、德文 irden 為同源詞；拆解上就是 earth 加 -en（用某材料做的）。
packet evidence: Wiktionary etymology_text for earthen adj (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1155918135:15918)
Two branches
屬於塵世的（舊用法）
把「出於土」這個畫面從器物移到人身上：因為出於塵土，所以會壞、會過去。
adjective · C2
Belonging to this world and this life, rather than to heaven or to anything lasting. This use is old, and you meet it mainly in poems and other older writing.
塵世的（古語）