The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington)
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We're not talking about adhesives here: the paste of interest here came to be as an alteration of the word baste, which means "to beat severely or soundly." (This baste is unrelated to the two distinct baste homographs that mean "to sew with long stitches" and "to moisten while cooking.") The exact origin of baste is uncertain, but it probably comes from the Old Norse word beysta, meaning "to bruise, thrash, or flog." Baste was first seen in the 16th century, but paste didn't turn up in print until the mid-19th century, and it only recently acquired its "defeat" sense. Baste is now less popular than paste, though its relative lambaste ("to beat" or "to censure") is prevalent.
Synonyms
Examples of paste in a Sentence
Tanvi Chheda, Travel + Leisure, 13 Apr. 2024
Try our lime-chipotle paste for steak that will earn rave reviews.
—Karla Walsh, Better Homes & Gardens, 12 Apr. 2024
It’s made by simmering spaghetti in spicy tomato sauce until the pasta is al dente and the sauce is mostly absorbed or evaporated and about as thick as tomato paste.
—Dan Pashman, Saveur, 11 Apr. 2024
Stir in tomato paste, baharat, turmeric and cinnamon stick, and cook until the tomato paste begins to caramelize, about 2 minutes.
—Melissa Clark, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Apr. 2024
All its scented pastes are part of the company’s Ekusuri Mugurisu series, which also includes standard thermal paste.
—Joanna Nelius, The Verge, 8 Apr. 2024
Their mother made fish paste and sold it to neighbors.
—Maahil Mohamed Elke Scholiers, New York Times, 6 Apr. 2024
Continue to stir to make a slurry and cook the tomato paste, about 1 minute.
—Lynda Balslev, The Mercury News, 18 Mar. 2024
Don’t forget an order of cherry naan ($5) stuffed with a sweet red paste, or dive fully into sugar land with kulfi falooda ($5) ice cream sundaes.
—Benjy Egel, Sacramento Bee, 1 Apr. 2024
Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press, 2 Apr. 2024
Posters bearing politicians’ beaming faces were hastily pasted up on roadside billboards.
—Mady Camara, New York Times, 24 Mar. 2024
Against the deep black backdrops around them — the game is staged like a piece of black box theater — this lack of contrast surrounds the players with digital halos, as if they’d been awkwardly pasted into the space.
—Siddhant Adlakha, Variety, 20 Mar. 2024
These materials are then arranged and pasted onto a board or poster in a way that feels meaningful and inspiring to you.
—Mark Travers, Forbes, 29 Mar. 2024
Some may be asking: How did the police department get into the habit of pasting Lego heads — and hiding the person’s face in general — onto pictures of suspects?
—Jody Serrano / Gizmodo, Quartz, 27 Mar. 2024
Just copy and paste the offending email address into the search bar and batch delete everything that pops up.
—Boone Ashworth Lauren Goode, WIRED, 17 Mar. 2024
Big companies have invested big bucks in recent years into software designed to automate routine back office tasks, many of which involve simply cutting and pasting data from one software application to another or using drop down menus to populate database fields.
—Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 14 Mar. 2024
One of the first 10 image search results shows Cyrus’ face cut out and pasted onto a pre-existing pornographic image.
—Kat Tenbarge, NBC News, 1 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'paste.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near paste
Cite this Entry
“Paste.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paste. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
paste
1 of 3 nounpaste
2 of 3 verbpaste
3 of 3 verbNoun
Middle English paste "pastry dough," from early French paste (same meaning), from Latin pasta "paste, dough"
Verb
an altered form of earlier baste "to hit, beat"
Medical Definition
paste
noun
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