paste

[peyst]

noun

1. a mixture of flour and water, often with starch or the like, used for causing paper or other material to adhere to something.

2. any soft, smooth, and plastic material or preparation.

3. dough, especially when prepared with shortening, as for making pie crust and other pastry.

   puff paste.

4. any of various semisoft fruit confections of pliable consistency.

   almond paste; guava paste.

5. a preparation of fish, tomatoes, or other food reduced to a smooth, soft mass, as for a relish or for seasoning.

6. pasta.

7. a mixture of clay, water, etc., for making pottery or porcelain.

8. Jewelry.

   1. a brilliant, heavy glass, as strass, used for making artificial gems.

   2. an artificial gem of this material.

9. Slang.,  a hard smack, blow, or punch, especially on the face.

verb (used with object)

pasted, pasting 

1. to fasten or stick with paste or the like.

2. to cover with something applied by means of paste.

3. Slang.,  to hit (a person) hard, especially on the face.

4. Computers.,  to insert (copied text, images, etc.) into a file.

verb (used without object)

1. Computers.,  to insert copied text, images, etc., into a file.

paste

¹

/ peɪst /

noun

1. a mixture or material of a soft or malleable consistency, such as toothpaste

2. an adhesive made from water and flour or starch, used esp for joining pieces of paper

3. a preparation of food, such as meat, that has been powdered to a creamy mass, for spreading on bread, crackers, etc

4. any of various sweet doughy confections

   almond paste

5. dough, esp when prepared with shortening, as for making pastry

6. 1. Also called: strass. a hard shiny glass used for making imitation gems

   2. an imitation gem made of this glass

7. the combined ingredients of porcelain See also hard paste soft paste

verb

1. to attach by or as if by using paste

   he pasted posters onto the wall

2. (usually foll by with) to cover (a surface) with paper, usually attached with an adhesive

   he pasted the wall with posters

paste

²

/ peɪst /

verb

1. slang,  (tr) to hit, esp with the fists; punch or beat soundly

Other Word Forms

• prepaste verb (used with object)
• repaste verb (used with object)
• semipaste noun
• unpaste verb (used with object)

Word History and Origins

Origin of paste¹

1350–1400; Middle English < Middle French < Late Latin pasta dough < Greek pastá barley porridge, noun use of neuter plural of pastós, verbid of pássein to strew, sprinkle; a pasta was originally a kind of gruel sprinkled with salt; paste ( defs. 9, 12 ) probably by association with baste ³

Word History and Origins

Origin of paste¹

C14: via Old French from Late Latin pasta dough, from Greek pastē barley porridge, from pastos, from passein to sprinkle

Origin of paste²

C19: variant of _baste ³

Example Sentences

In Rome they romped to a 4-0 lead on the first morning by delivering an alternate shot pasting that the US never recovered from.

From BBC

While sharing their memory-keeping mothers’ pasted pages and nostalgic ethos, these journals have broken family tradition with their messy aesthetic and preference for oft-discarded objects.

From Los Angeles Times

On my first morning, I looked up at a coffee shop menu and saw a sticker of a Canadian flag pasted over my habitual order, an Americano.

From Los Angeles Times

The plaintiffs allege agents fabricated and copied and pasted boilerplate language for those reports from the raid at the Home Depot in south Sacramento.

From Los Angeles Times

It was depressing, that fake tuna, the best on the market but still a vaguely unsavory amalgam of fish paste and seaweed powder — nothing like the tuna she remembered.

From Los Angeles Times