plaster
Americannoun
-
plasters
plural
-
a composition, as of lime or gypsum, sand, water, and sometimes hair or other fiber, applied in a pasty form to walls, ceilings, etc., and allowed to harden and dry.
-
powdered gypsum.
-
a solid or semisolid preparation spread upon cloth, plastic, or other material and applied to the body, especially for some healing purpose.
verb (used with object)
-
plasters,
present (3rd person singular)
-
plastered,
past participle, past
-
plastering
present participle
-
to cover (walls, ceilings, etc.) with plaster.
-
to treat with gypsum or plaster of Paris.
-
to lay flat like a layer of plaster.
-
to daub or fill with plaster or something similar.
-
to apply a plaster to (the body, a wound, etc.).
-
to overspread with something, especially thickly or excessively.
a wall plastered with posters.
-
Informal.
noun
-
a mixture of lime, sand, and water, sometimes stiffened with hair or other fibres, that is applied to the surface of a wall or ceiling as a soft paste that hardens when dry
-
an adhesive strip of material, usually medicated, for dressing a cut, wound, etc
-
short for mustard plaster plaster of Paris
verb
-
to coat (a wall, ceiling, etc) with plaster
-
(tr) to apply like plaster
she plastered make-up on her face
-
(tr) to cause to lie flat or to adhere
-
(tr) to apply a plaster cast to
-
slang (tr) to strike or defeat with great force
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
plasterernoun
-
plasterinessnoun
-
replasterverb (used with object)
-
unplasterverb (used with object)
-
plasterlikeadjective
-
plasteryadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
plastersimple
-
plasterssimple
-
have plasteredperfect
-
has plasteredperfect
-
am plasteringprogressive
-
are plasteringprogressive
-
is plasteringprogressive
-
have been plasteringperfect progressive
-
has been plasteringperfect progressive
Past
-
plasteredsimple
-
had plasteredperfect
-
was plasteringprogressive
-
were plasteringprogressive
-
had been plasteringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of plaster
First recorded before 1000; Middle English, Old English, from Medieval Latin plastrum “plaster” (both medical and building senses), aphetic variant of Latin emplastrum, from Greek émplastron “salve,” alteration of émplaston, neuter of émplastos “daubed”; see em- 2, -plast
Explanation
Plaster is a building material that's applied as a wet paste and dries very hard and smooth. The walls inside your house might be made of plaster. New houses typically have interior walls made of drywall, rather than plaster, but older homes usually have many plaster surfaces. Plaster starts as a mixture of lime, gypsum, sand, or cement that's mixed with water. This soft substance is applied to surfaces where it hardens — either for walls, works of art, or as casts used to hold broken bones steady. In Britain, a plaster is also a sticky bandage, while an American would call this a Band-Aid.
Vocabulary lists containing plaster
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Using about $500 of his savings, he paid two guys he found on Craigslist to plaster the city with more than 300 flyers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
Officially, it’s closed because a section of the Grand Foyer ceiling gave way in a storm, plaster crashing to the floor, and the building needed to be shut down for safety.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
Jacobs’ residence is constructed from stone and plaster, with a slate roof and copper trim.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 9, 2026
Perkins described the process, which is licensed by Natural England, as "a sort of sticking plaster" that will work "until we can get better natural nesting in place".
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
When we got it out, it was a plaster bust of The Great Emancipator, President Abraham Lincoln, finished like bronze.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
During the renovation, a slip of paper containing the names of architects and plasters responsible for building the theatre was discovered in a glass bottle hidden behind a crown decoration.
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026
In the plasters, his details are sharper, his jagged surfaces dangerous, his faces more emotive.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
Even North Korea, which plasters pictures of leader Kim Jong Un across the country and demands reverence, does not feature him in the passport, which instead depicts sacred Mount Paektu.
From Barron's ● Apr. 28, 2026
He plasters them across the city in hopes of bringing ‘little expressions of joy’ to Angelenos.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 15, 2024
She grabbed for the nearest piece of cloth to shoo them away and her heart froze with terror as she connected her daughter's evening baths with the mustard plasters that rolled onto the floor.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
About the theory that she would only be engaging with these people if she were plastered?
From Slate ● Oct. 15, 2026
The pictures plastered outside the truck made Montgomery feel like she was in an episode of “The Twilight Zone.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
Posters advertising performers with their mother's surname, such as Waithaka wa Jane and 90K Ka Msoh, are often plastered to hoardings in the capital, Nairobi.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
Her anguish is shared outside morgues as well as in hospitals, where photos of missing persons are plastered on walls and utility poles, written on handwritten pieces of paper.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
They made a big panful of mud, and plastered him all over with it.
From "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Since early Thursday, BNP backers started gathering in the capital, plastering the streets with banners and festoons bearing images of Rahman.
From Barron's ● Dec. 25, 2025
Clinging to the chassis of an airplane with the wind plastering his hair to his forehead and oscillating his gums like bulldog in a convertible, he is, in fact, exceedingly flapped.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2025
To say an animal is experiencing a certain feeling is not plastering a human emotion on an inhuman thing.
From Salon ● Feb. 18, 2025
Wider projects involving stonemasonry and plastering on historical buildings in and around Eyemouth are planned on the back of the success of restoring Bee.
From BBC ● Jan. 28, 2025
Then suddenly, WHAM!, the engine started, kicking like a mule and plastering us up against our shoulder straps.
From "Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut's Story" by Michael Collins
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
