plaster

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A mixture of lime or gypsum, sand, and water, sometimes with fiber added, that hardens to a smooth solid and is used for coating walls and ceilings.
2. n. Plaster of Paris.
3. n. A pastelike mixture applied to a part of the body for healing or cosmetic purposes. Also called sticking plaster.
4. n. Chiefly British An adhesive bandage.
5. v. To cover, coat, or repair with plaster.
6. v. To cover or hide with or as if with a coat of plaster: plastered over our differences.
7. v. To apply a plaster to: plaster an aching muscle.
8. v. To cover conspicuously, as with things pasted on; overspread: plaster the walls with advertising.
9. v. To affix conspicuously, usually with a paste: plaster notices on all the doors.
10. v. To make smooth by applying a sticky substance: plaster one's hair with pomade.
11. v. To make adhere to another surface: "His hair was plastered to his forehead” ( William Golding).
12. v. Informal To inflict heavy damage or injury on.
13. v. Informal To defeat decisively.
14. v. To apply plaster.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In pharmacy, a solid compound intended for external application, adhesive at the temperature of the human body, and requiring to be softened by heat before being spread.
2. n. A composition of lime water, and sand, with or without hair for binding, well mixed so as to form a kind of paste, and used for coating walls and partitions of houses.
3. n. Calcined gypsum or calcium sulphate, used, when mixed with water, for finishing walls, for molds, ornaments, casts, luting, cement, etc. Plaster used as a ground for painting in distemper is un-burned, and of two kinds, one coarse and one of a finer quality. Both are made from white alabaster, but the latter, which is used also as a ground for gilding, and for working ornaments in relief, is more carefully prepared than the former. The plaster used for taking casts from life or from statues is always burned.
4. n. Calcined gypsum—that is, gypsum from which the water has been driven off by heat : used in building and in making casts of busts and statues, etc. When diluted with water into a thin paste, plaster of Paris sets rapidly, and at the instant of setting expands or increases in bulk; hence this material becomes valuable for filling cavities, etc., where other earths would shrink.
5. To apply a medicative plaster to; cover with a plaster: as, to plaster a wound.
6. To cover or overlay with plaster, as the walls of a house, partitions, etc.
7. To bedaub or besmear: as, to plaster the face with powder.
8. To fill or cover over with or as with plaster; hide; gloss: with up.
9. To treat with plaster; add gypsum to: as, to plaster vines by dusting them with gypsum in order to prevent rot or mildew of the berries; to plaster wines by adding gypsum in order to neutralize acid or produce other fancied benefits.
10. n. In a general sense, calcium sulphate, whether deprived by heat of its water of crystallization or not, as, for instance, the crust of hydrated calcium sulphate which forms on salt-boilers' pans, or natural gypsum used as a fertilizer and known as land-plaster.

Wiktionary

1. n. uncountable A paste applied to the skin for healing or cosmetic purposes.
2. n. countable, New Zealand, UK A small adhesive bandage to cover a minor wound; a sticking plaster.
3. n. uncountable A mixture of lime or gypsum, sand, and water, sometimes with the addition of fibres, that hardens to a smooth solid and is used for coating walls and ceilings.
4. n. countable A cast made of plaster of Paris and gauze; plaster cast.
5. v. transitive To cover or coat something with plaster, or apply a plaster.
6. v. transitive To hide or cover up, as if with plaster.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Med.) An external application of a consistency harder than ointment, prepared for use by spreading it on linen, leather, silk, or other material. It is adhesive at the ordinary temperature of the body, and is used, according to its composition, to produce a medicinal effect, to bind parts together, etc..
2. n. A composition of lime, water, and sand, with or without hair as a bond, for coating walls, ceilings, and partitions of houses. See Mortar.
3. n. Calcined gypsum, or plaster of Paris, especially when ground, as used for making ornaments, figures, moldings, etc.; or calcined gypsum used as a fertilizer.
4. v. To cover with a plaster, as a wound or sore.
5. v. To overlay or cover with plaster, as the ceilings and walls of a house.
6. v. Fig.: To smooth over; to cover or conceal the defects of; to hide, as with a covering of plaster.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a surface of hardened plaster (as on a wall or ceiling)
2. v. apply a heavy coat to
3. n. adhesive tape used in dressing wounds
4. v. affix conspicuously
5. n. a medical dressing consisting of a soft heated mass of meal or clay that is spread on a cloth and applied to the skin to treat inflamed areas or improve circulation etc.
6. v. cover conspicuously or thickly, as by pasting something on
7. n. any of several gypsum cements; a white powder (a form of calcium sulphate) that forms a paste when mixed with water and hardens into a solid; used in making molds and sculptures and casts for broken limbs
8. v. coat with plaster
9. v. dress by covering with a therapeutic substance
10. v. apply a plaster cast to
11. n. a mixture of lime or gypsum with sand and water; hardens into a smooth solid; used to cover walls and ceilings