Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Capable of being shaped or formed: synonym: malleable.
  • adjective Relating to or dealing with shaping or modeling.
  • adjective Having the qualities of sculpture; well-formed.
  • adjective Giving form or shape to a substance.
  • adjective Easily influenced; impressionable.
  • adjective Made of a plastic or plastics.
  • adjective Physics Capable of undergoing continuous deformation without rupture or relaxation.
  • adjective Capable of building tissue; formative.
  • adjective Able to change and adapt, especially by acquiring alternative pathways for sensory perception or motor skills. Used of the central nervous system.
  • adjective Marked by artificiality or superficiality.
  • adjective Informal Of or obtained by means of credit cards.
  • noun Any of various organic compounds produced by polymerization, capable of being molded, extruded, cast into various shapes and films, or drawn into filaments used as textile fibers.
  • noun Informal A credit card or credit cards.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Applied by Liebig to the proteid constituents of animal food as serving to form the principal tissues of the body, in contradistinction to the non-nitrogenous portion of the food, which he called respiratory as serving for the production of bodily heat by their oxidation.
  • Capable of receiving and of responding to environmental impulses which induce more or less rapid evolution of an organism as a whole or of certain of its organs: the opposite of conservative and persistent.
  • noun The art. of modeling or molding; sculpture.
  • noun A molder; a modeler; a statuary.
  • noun The commercial name for any one of a class of substances, such as celluloid or viscose, which are worked into shape for use by molding or pressing when in a plastic condition.
  • Capable of molding or of giving form or fashion to a mass of matter; having power to mold.
  • Capable of being modeled or molded into various forms, as plaster, clay, etc.; hence, capable of change or modification; capable of receiving a new bent or direction: as, the mind is plastic in youth.
  • Pertaining to or connected with modeling or molding; produced by or characteristic of modeling or molding: as, the plastic art (that is, sculpture in the widest sense, as distinguished from painting and the graphic arts).
  • In biology, specifically, plasmic

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Having the power to give form or fashion to a mass of matter.
  • adjective Capable of being molded, formed, or modeled, as clay or plaster; -- used also figuratively.
  • adjective Pertaining or appropriate to, or characteristic of, molding or modeling; produced by, or appearing as if produced by, molding or modeling; -- said of sculpture and the kindred arts, in distinction from painting and the graphic arts.
  • adjective (Geol.) one of the beds of the Eocene period; -- so called because used in making pottery.
  • adjective (Physiol.) one that bears within the germs of a higher form.
  • adjective (Med.) an exudation thrown out upon a wounded surface and constituting the material of repair by which the process of healing is effected.
  • adjective (Physiol.) See the second Note under Food.
  • adjective (Physiol.) See under Force.
  • adjective an operation in plastic surgery.
  • adjective that branch of surgery which is concerned with the repair or restoration of lost, injured, or deformed parts of the body.
  • noun A substance composed predominantly of a synthetic organic high polymer capable of being cast or molded; many varieties of plastic are used to produce articles of commerce (after 1900). [MW10 gives origin of word as 1905]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete A sculptor, moulder.
  • noun archaic Any solid but malleable substance.
  • noun A synthetic, thermoplastic, solid, hydrocarbon-based polymer.
  • noun Any similar synthetic material, not necessarily thermoplastic.
  • noun colloquial credit or debit cards used in place of cash to buy goods and services.
  • noun slang Fakeness, or a person who is fake or arrogant, or believes that they are better than the rest of the population.
  • adjective slang Fake, snobbish. Usually refers to a person.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a card (usually plastic) that assures a seller that the person using it has a satisfactory credit rating and that the issuer will see to it that the seller receives payment for the merchandise delivered
  • noun generic name for certain synthetic or semisynthetic materials that can be molded or extruded into objects or films or filaments or used for making e.g. coatings and adhesives
  • adjective capable of being influenced or formed
  • adjective forming or capable of forming or molding or fashioning
  • adjective capable of being molded or modeled (especially of earth or clay or other soft material)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin plasticus, from Greek plastikos, from plastos, molded, from plassein, to mold; see pelə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin plasticus ("of molding"), from Ancient Greek πλαστικός (plastikos), from πλάσσειν (plassein).

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Examples

  • Before going further, we first had to narrow the topic by differentiating among the wide spectrum of procedures that are often lumped together under the term plastic surgery.

    Vivian Diller, Ph.D.: Does Beauty Bring Happiness? Ph.D. Vivian Diller 2011

  • Before going further, we first had to narrow the topic by differentiating among the wide spectrum of procedures that are often lumped together under the term plastic surgery.

    Vivian Diller, Ph.D.: Does Beauty Bring Happiness? Ph.D. Vivian Diller 2011

  • Although almost all the talks given at the conference were about plastic pollution in our oceans, the resulting "Honolulu Strategy Document" from the conference doesn't use the term plastic pollution once.

    Lisa Kaas Boyle: Occupy the Environment Lisa Kaas Boyle 2011

  • Before going further, we first had to narrow the topic by differentiating among the wide spectrum of procedures that are often lumped together under the term plastic surgery.

    Vivian Diller, Ph.D.: Does Beauty Bring Happiness? Ph.D. Vivian Diller 2011

  • Before going further, we first had to narrow the topic by differentiating among the wide spectrum of procedures that are often lumped together under the term plastic surgery.

    Vivian Diller, Ph.D.: Does Beauty Bring Happiness? Ph.D. Vivian Diller 2011

  • Although almost all the talks given at the conference were about plastic pollution in our oceans, the resulting "Honolulu Strategy Document" from the conference doesn't use the term plastic pollution once.

    Lisa Kaas Boyle: Occupy the Environment Lisa Kaas Boyle 2011

  • Although almost all the talks given at the conference were about plastic pollution in our oceans, the resulting "Honolulu Strategy Document" from the conference doesn't use the term plastic pollution once.

    Lisa Kaas Boyle: Occupy the Environment Lisa Kaas Boyle 2011

  • Before going further, we first had to narrow the topic by differentiating among the wide spectrum of procedures that are often lumped together under the term plastic surgery.

    Vivian Diller, Ph.D.: Does Beauty Bring Happiness? Ph.D. Vivian Diller 2011

  • Sadly while Iain Dale may have invented Blogging, he is certainly not the inventor of the term plastic poll card as he claimed yesterday, and again back in 2006 when he puts the date of this achievement as "way back in July" 2005 when preparing a speech with David Davis for the second reading of the iD Cards Bill.

    Iain Dale: False Claim of Coining Plastic Poll Tax 2008

  • The term plastic surgery usually makes people think of fake breasts and Botox injections but there are a whole slew of operations for all kinds of medically necessary problems.

    EzineArticles 2010

Comments

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  • And we had hardly gone on a few paces, when we entered what might easily have been taken for a majestic temple, with lofty arches, supported by beautiful pillars, formed by the plastic hand of some ingenious artist.

    - Karl Philipp Moritz, Travels in England in 1782

    November 14, 2008