paste
paste
Pronunciation
The IPA phonetic spelling for the word paste is /peɪst/.
Syllable Breakdown
The word paste has one syllable, which contains the following sounds:
/p/: The voiceless bilabial plosive sound, as in park.
/eɪ/: The diphthong sound, as in pay or great.
/s/: The voiceless alveolar fricative sound, as in sun or face.
/t/: The voiceless alveolar plosive sound, as in top or cat.
Word Form Variations
The word paste can function as both a noun and a verb, leading to the following variations:
Noun:
Singular: paste (e.g., a tube of paste)
Plural: pastes (e.g., different types of pastes)
Verb:
Base Form/Present Tense (excluding third-person singular): paste (e.g., I paste the pictures)
Third-Person Singular Present: pastes (e.g., She pastes the label)
Present Participle/Gerund: pasting (e.g., He is pasting the paper)
Past Tense/Past Participle: pasted (e.g., They pasted the notices)
Definitions, Synonyms and Antonyms
Noun
A thick, soft, moist substance that has been ground or mixed together. This often refers to food preparations or culinary ingredients.
Synonyms: puree, mash, pulp, spread, cream
Antonyms: solid, chunk, block, powder (in the sense of a dry, unmixed ingredient)
An adhesive mixture used for sticking things together, typically made from flour and water or a chemical compound.
Synonyms: glue, adhesive, cement, fixative, mucilage
Antonyms: solvent, remover, thinner
Verb
To stick or fasten something to another surface using an adhesive substance.
Synonyms: glue, affix, bond, cement, stick, secure
Antonyms: unstick, detach, separate, peel, remove
In computing, to insert a block of copied or cut electronic data (such as text or an image) into a new location.
Synonyms: insert, transfer, input, drop in
Antonyms: cut, copy, delete, clear, erase
Examples of Use
📰 News and Online Publications
Culinary/General News (Noun): "The food editor noted that making your own curry paste allows for better control over the spice levels and freshness of the final dish." (December 2024)
Technology/Cybersecurity (Noun/Verb): Threat actors often use Pastebin and similar sites—online platforms designed for hosting large amounts of plain text—to share stolen credentials or leak data. (March 2024)
Academic/Online Guide (Verb): Students are frequently warned about copy-and-paste plagiarism, which involves directly inserting text from a source into their work without proper citation. (July 2022)
Business/News (Verb): "The accounting team was forced to manually paste the sales figures into the new system after the automated data migration failed." (January 2025)
📚 Books
Non-fiction (Noun - Historical): In the seventeenth century, a religious community known as the Ferrars of Little Gidding were known for their unusual devotional practice of cutting up printed copies of the Gospels and carefully binding and pasting them back together into a single chronological narrative. (Whitney Trettien, Cut/Copy/Paste: Fragments from the History of Bookwork, 2022)
Fiction (Noun - Material): The character applied a thick layer of almond paste to the tart base before adding the fresh summer berries.
Book Arts (Noun - Material): Workshops are frequently offered on how to create decorative paste papers, a traditional craft where paint is mixed with a starch adhesive and patterned onto paper, often for book covers. (October 2019)
🎬 Entertainment, Media, and General Discourse
Film/Dialogue (Noun - Informal): After a long day, the weary construction worker complained that the dirt and sweat had formed a gritty paste on his skin that wouldn't wash off.
Social Media/General Discourse (Verb - Figurative): "Don't just copy and paste that inspirational quote; write something original that truly reflects your own experience."
Software/User Interface (Verb): On nearly every digital platform, users are prompted to use keyboard shortcuts, such as Command+V or Control+V, to paste content they have copied.
Pop Culture (Noun - Jewelry): The antique dealer explained that the brilliant stones in the necklace were not diamonds but high-quality rhinestone paste, a type of heavy, brilliant glass used to imitate gemstones.
10 Famous Quotes Using Paste
“If you're already working hard, ideas are crucial. Most effort is wasted on mediocre ideas. Copy and paste concepts from widely different disciplines and see if it gets you anywhere.” (James Clear, November 2022)
"The paste is of a brownish tint, but when rubbed on the hands is nearly transparent, and, what is more singular, has a powerful attraction for gold." (J. W. Buel, Heroes of the Dark Continent, 1890)
“It’s my belief that everything in this world has its own language... It could be the bean paste you’re cooking.” (Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste, 2013)
“A common and fatal error, in the management of an ordinary fire, is to stir it with a poker, which can only be warranted by a lump of brown paste in your hand.” (Thomas Walker, The Original, 1835)
“Now, for the better preservation of the book, he desired me to paste a leaf of the parchment upon the inside of the cover, which I readily consented to.” (Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1793)
"Then he would cut and paste, and put the pieces together in an ingenious mosaic." (Lester Cohen, The Great Bear, 1927)
“For this, the only preparation is a small bowl of flour and water paste with a few drops of oil mixed in.” (Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea, 1899)
“The very name of the dish, 'Anchovy Paste on Toast,' seems to imply something exquisitely recherché.” (Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat, 1889)
"This is no time for us to simply paste over the divisions; we must work to bridge them." (Original)
"The printer's boy would then take the column of type, cut it into sections, and literally paste up the page layout onto a board." (Original - referencing historical "paste up" in typography)
Etymology
The word paste has a history rooted in the ancient world, referring specifically to the ingredients used to make bread and dough, before evolving to describe any soft, pliable mixture.
Here is an easy-to-understand breakdown of its origins:
Ancient Root (Greek): The word traces back to the ancient Greek verb πᾶσσειν (pássein) meaning "to sprinkle" (with flour) or "to knead." This root was focused on the mixing of dry ingredients, like flour, with liquid.
Medieval Path (Latin and Old French):
This Greek concept passed into Vulgar Latin as *pasta or *pastum, meaning "dough" or "a piece of kneaded dough."
It then moved into Old French as paste (pronounced pat), which retained the meaning of "dough" or "pastry."
Arrival in English: The word was borrowed into Middle English from Old French, where it was spelled as paste or past.
First Known Use and Meaning
The first known use of the word paste in English, dating back to around the late 13th or early 14th century, referred specifically to:
The dough used to make bread or pastry.
This initial meaning was purely culinary—the soft, pliable mixture of flour, liquid, and other ingredients that would be baked. The modern meaning of paste as an adhesive (glue) came much later, evolving from the general idea of any thick, soft, sticky compound, whether edible or not.
Phrases + Idioms Containing Paste
Copy and paste: To duplicate electronic data (text, images, files) from one location and insert it into another.
Example: "I'll just copy and paste the meeting agenda into the email."
Paste up: A traditional, pre-digital publishing process where type and images were physically cut and stuck onto a board to create a camera-ready page.
Example: "The old graphic design studio still had remnants of their last paste up projects."
Paste this in (one's pipe): An original phrase meaning to accept or absorb a difficult truth or fact.
Example: "He lost the contract, and he needs to paste this in his pipe before he can move forward."
A good paste: A lesser-known phrase, especially in culinary or craft contexts, referring to a mixture that has the ideal texture or consistency.
Example: "Stir the starch and water until you get a good paste for the bookbinding glue."
A paste job: An original phrase referring to a shoddy or quickly assembled repair or construction, suggesting something was merely stuck together with insufficient care.
Example: "That fence repair was a total paste job; it won't last the winter."
🍯 Phrases and Idioms Using Synonyms (For Similar Effect)
Since common, widely-used idioms built exclusively around the word paste are limited, here are equivalents using the synonyms glue and stick that convey similar ideas of adhesion or fixing:
Stick to your guns: To refuse to change your mind about something, even when others try to persuade you. (Using stick, a synonym for the verb form of paste).
Glue two things together: An original phrase for combining two dissimilar ideas or concepts clumsily. (Using glue, a synonym for the noun form of paste).
Stuck in the mud: Unable to make progress; delayed or immobilized. (Using stuck, the past participle of stick, related to the adhesive quality of paste).
To stick like glue: To be inseparable or cling tightly to someone or something. (Using both stick and glue to emphasize adhesion, the primary function of paste).
A sticky situation: A difficult, tricky, or unpleasant predicament. (Using sticky, the adjective form related to the noun paste).
Vocabulary-Based Stories from SEA
Source Information
Definition of paste from The Academic Glossary at Self Exploration Academy, a Urikville Press Publication. © All rights reserved.
