Plastics

How to spell plastics

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce plastics

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does plastics mean?

1. nounSynthetic materials made from polymers that can be moulded into shape, or the industry that produces them.

Plastics in a sentence

• The factory recycles several types of plastics into new bottles.

• Her degree focused on the chemistry of modern plastics.

Where does plastics come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek plastikos, meaning 'able to be moulded or shaped', which itself came from the verb plassein, 'to mould, form, or shape'. Latin took it as plasticus, and English picked it up in the 1600s, at first as an adjective describing anything that could be shaped, such as soft clay or wax. For centuries 'plastic' meant simply 'mouldable', and that older sense survives in phrases like 'plastic surgery', where the skin and tissue are reshaped. Only in the early twentieth century did the noun come to name the synthetic, mouldable materials we know today, and 'plastics' became the plural and the collective name for that whole family of materials and the industry around them. The same Greek root also gives us 'protoplasm' and 'plasma', all sharing the idea of something formed or moulded.

How the word is built

• plast- (from Greek plastikos: able to be moulded)
• -ic (adjective/noun suffix)
• -s (plural)