PLASTIC • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Plastic

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/plˈæstɪk/ Listen

noun

plastic n. 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)

adjective

Plastic adj.

1.

Having the power to give form or fashion to a mass of matter; as, the plastic hand of the Creator. "See plastic Nature working to his end."

2.

Capable of being molded, formed, or modeled, as clay or plaster; used also figuratively; as, the plastic mind of a child.

3.

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. "Medallions... fraught with the plastic beauty and grace of the palmy days of Italian art."

Plastic clay (Geol.), one of the beds of the Eocene period; so called because used in making pottery.

Plastic element (Physiol.), one that bears within the germs of a higher form.

Plastic exudation (Med.), an exudation thrown out upon a wounded surface and constituting the material of repair by which the process of healing is effected.

Plastic foods. (Physiol.) See the second Note under Food.

Plastic force. (Physiol.) See under Force.

Plastic operation, an operation in plastic surgery.

Plastic surgery, that branch of surgery which is concerned with the repair or restoration of lost, injured, or deformed parts of the body.

suffix

-plastic suff. A combining form signifying developing, forming, growing; as, heteroplastic, monoplastic, polyplastic.

See images of 'Plastic'

Etymology of 'Plastic'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Plastic" Quotes from Famous Books

... this time in self-derision. A robot couldn't feel important, or anything else. A robot was nothing but steel and plastic and magnetized tape and photo-micro-positronic circuits, whereas a man—His Imperial Majesty Paul XXII, for instance—was nothing but tissues and cells and colloids and electro-neuronic circuits. There was a difference; anybody knew ...

— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper

... imperceptibly accommodating its practice and principles of action to altered circumstances, there can be no doubt that it is by considerations of well-being, half conscious though the process of application may be, that the change is directed. The plastic power by which men accommodate their actions and even their maxims of conduct to modifications in surrounding circumstances is one of the advantages which they gain by the progress of civilisation. In ancient society the tyranny of ...

— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... Upon my return to Earth, the serious operations took place, those giving me plastic limbs that would become living parts of my organic structure. The same outward push of the brain and nervous system that had created phantom pain now made what was artificial seem real. Not only did my own blood course through the protoplastic but I ...

— Man Made • Albert R. Teichner

... many-branching roads—then I made myself your adopted child. You took at once into the bosom of another Socrates my tender years; your rule, applied with skillful disguise, straightens each perverse habit; nature is molded by reason, and struggles to be subdued, and assumes under your hands its plastic lineaments. Ay, well I mind how I would wear away long summer suns with you, and pluck with you the bloom of night's first hours. One work we had, one certain time for rest, and at one modest ...

— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... doubt an active agent in the holy work of evangelisation. But opposed as he was to prevailing influences, he was yet a man of his time. We can hardly fancy the John Wesley whom we know living in any other century than his own. Spending the most plastic, perhaps also the most reflective period of his life in a chief centre of theological activity, he was not unimpressed by the storm of argument which was at that time going on around him. It was uncongenial to his temper, but it ...

— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

Copyright © 2025 Free-Translator.com