paste
n. C / Un. a soft, thick, and wet mixture that is easy to spread. You use it for sticking things together or for eating, like tomato paste.
n. a thick, soft, moist substance produced by mixing dry ingredients with a liquid. Often used as an adhesive or a concentrated food base.
Apply the paste evenly to the back of the wallpaper.
The recipe calls for two tablespoons of tomato paste to thicken the sauce and add color.
Archaeologists discovered traces of a primitive adhesive paste made from birch bark resin, suggesting that early humans possessed sophisticated knowledge of material properties.
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)kweh₁t-der. Ancient Greek πάσσω (pássō) Proto-Indo-European *-tós Ancient Greek -τός (-tós) Ancient Greek παστός (pastós) Ancient Greek παστά (pastá)bor. Late Latin pasta Old French pastebor. Middle English paste English paste From Middle English paste, from Old French paste (modern pâte), from Late Latin pasta, from Ancient Greek παστά (pastá). Doublet of pasta. The verb is from the noun. Middle English had pasten (“to make a paste of; bake in a pastry”), also from the noun; compare Latin pistō and Medieval Latin pastillātus.
Probably an alteration of baste (“beat”) influenced by some sense of the noun.
Unadapted borrowing from Italian paste (“pastas”).
Uncountable when referring to the substance in general; countable when referring to specific varieties or commercial types.