paste
[peyst]
- a mixture of flour and water, often with starch or the like, used for causing paper or other material to adhere to something.
- any soft, smooth, and plastic material or preparation.
- dough, especially when prepared with shortening, as for making pie crust and other pastry: puff paste.
- any of various semisoft fruit confections of pliable consistency: almond paste; guava paste.
- a preparation of fish, tomatoes, or other food reduced to a smooth, soft mass, as for a relish or for seasoning.
- pasta.
- a mixture of clay, water, etc., for making pottery or porcelain.
- Jewelry.
- a brilliant, heavy glass, as strass, used for making artificial gems.
- an artificial gem of this material.
- Slang. a hard smack, blow, or punch, especially on the face.
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- to fasten or stick with paste or the like.
- to cover with something applied by means of paste.
- Slang. to hit (a person) hard, especially on the face.
- Computers. to insert (copied text, images, etc.) into a file.Compare copy(def 15), cut(def 24).
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- Computers. to insert copied text, images, etc., into a file.Compare cut(def 42).
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Origin of paste
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; (defs 9, 12) probably by association with baste3
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for paste
Contemporary Examples
Labels will give you artist bios—with a quick copy and paste, you could provide that info to us, too!
Headache—Take the rinds of a couple of lemons and squash it into a paste.
Use These 15 Home Remedies Based On Ayurveda To Cure Menstrual Cramps, Hangovers, and IndigestionAri Meisel
January 21, 2014
Whiter Teeth—Make a paste by crushing some basil leaves with the zest of an orange.
Use These 15 Home Remedies Based On Ayurveda To Cure Menstrual Cramps, Hangovers, and IndigestionAri Meisel
January 21, 2014
I paste my walls with maps, drawings, lines of poetry, and sketch out a vague structure.
The regime does not paste over the clean windows of the upper class.
Historical Examples
What may be done with bits of paste not utilized in making pies?
Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
When éclairs are desired, make the paste as for cream puffs.
Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
Butter a deep dish, and line the bottom and sides of it with paste.
Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesEliza Leslie
If wrapped in paste, it will not be done in less than five hours.
Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesEliza Leslie
Butter the sides of a pot, and line them with paste nearly to the top.
Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesEliza Leslie
paste1
- a mixture or material of a soft or malleable consistency, such as toothpaste
- an adhesive made from water and flour or starch, used esp for joining pieces of paper
- a preparation of food, such as meat, that has been powdered to a creamy mass, for spreading on bread, crackers, etc
- any of various sweet doughy confectionsalmond paste
- dough, esp when prepared with shortening, as for making pastry
- Also called: strassa hard shiny glass used for making imitation gems
- an imitation gem made of this glass
- the combined ingredients of porcelainSee also hard paste, soft paste
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- (often foll by on or onto) to attach by or as if by using pastehe pasted posters onto the wall
- (usually foll by with) to cover (a surface) with paper, usually attached with an adhesivehe pasted the wall with posters
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Word Origin
C14: via Old French from Late Latin pasta dough, from Greek pastē barley porridge, from pastos, from passein to sprinkle
paste2
- (tr) slang to hit, esp with the fists; punch or beat soundly
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Word Origin
C19: variant of baste ³
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for paste
n.
c.1300 (mid-12c. as a surname), "dough," from Old French paste "dough, pastry" (13c., Modern French pâte), from Late Latin pasta "dough, pastry cake, paste" (see pasta). Meaning "glue mixture" is first attested mid-15c.
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v.2
"hit hard," 1846, probably an alteration of baste "beat" (see lambaste). Related: Pasted; pasting.
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v.1
"to stick with paste," 1560s; see paste (n.). Related: Pasted; pasting.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
paste
(pāst)- A smooth semisolid mixture, soft enough to flow slowly and not retain its shape.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.