paste

American  

[peyst] / peɪst /

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.

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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 British  

/ 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

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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 British  

/ peɪst /

verb

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

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Other Word Forms

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

Etymology

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; paste ( defs. 9, 12 ) probably by association with baste ³

Explanation

Paste is like glue. If you paste something, you stick it onto something else. You might copy and paste info from one document to another on your computer, or literally paste posters all over town. Just don’t use tomato paste. Some foods take the form of a paste, like cake frosting or pâté. There's also the kind of paste you can use for gluing paper — like wallpaper paste, for example. Costume jewelry, which resembles gemstones but is relatively inexpensive, is made from another, harder kind of paste. To paste something is to stick it together, to patch it, or to cover it with paper. The Late Latin root is pasta, or "dough."

Example Sentences

"The industry has to innovate and leapfrog, and not just copy and paste China," he said.

From Barron's • May 13, 2026

And whoever leaves first takes the sticky paste with them.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 21, 2026

A sweet tart filled with a chocolate paste made with cocoa and milk powders.

From BBC • Apr. 17, 2026

He described scenarios where workers who will take their bosses’ questions, paste them into AI tools and deliver the AI response right back to the higher-ups.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 11, 2026

Mama calls a girl in the front to turn the onion mixture into a thick paste using a potato masher.

From "A Place at the Table" by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan