Plastered

How to spell plastered

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce plastered

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does plastered mean?

1. verbCoated, covered, or stuck flat with plaster or some other spread-on substance.
2. adjectiveInformal term meaning very drunk or heavily intoxicated.

Plastered in a sentence

• verb

  The builders plastered the bedroom walls before the paint went on.

• adjective

  He got completely plastered at the office party and missed his train home.

• verb

  After the storm, wet leaves plastered the windscreen of the car.

• adjective

  They were too plastered to remember who had paid the bar tab.

Where does plastered come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek emplastron, meaning a medicated dressing or salve that was spread onto the skin, built from the prefix en- 'in, on' and plassein 'to mould or form'. Latin took this in as plastrum and emplastrum, and in late Old English it became plaster, first describing a curative dressing laid on a wound. By the medieval period the meaning had broadened to the soft mixture of lime, sand and water that builders smear onto walls, since both senses share the idea of something spread on and left to set. The verb 'to plaster' produced the past form 'plastered', which over time also picked up the figurative slang sense of being thoroughly soaked, and from there came to mean very drunk. The everyday spelling trap is simply the unstressed -ered ending, which the ear hears as a single blurred sound.

How the word is built

• plaster (from Greek emplastron, a salve spread on)
• -ed (past participle / adjective suffix)