Other forms: plastered, plastering, plasters
A plaster is the small sticky strip you press over a cut to keep it clean. It is also the soft grey mixture spread on a wall that dries hard and smooth. One word, two very different rooms of the house.
The bandage sense is British; Americans reach for a Band-Aid. The wall sense gives plasterer, the trade, and plasterboard, the flat sheets screwed to a frame. Plaster of Paris is the white powder that sets rock-hard with water, which is why a broken arm goes into a plaster cast, or simply in plaster. As a verb, plaster means to spread something thickly or cover a surface completely: hair plastered to his forehead, walls plastered with posters. And in informal speech, someone plastered is very drunk.
1nounplasterA small sticky strip placed over a cut or a blister.
“She put a plaster on his knee and told him to stop crying.”
synonyms: dressing, sticking plaster
2nounsoftA soft mixture spread on walls and ceilings that dries hard.
“The old plaster was crumbling away from the brick.”
3nounwhiteA hard white casing that holds a broken bone still while it heals.
“His leg was in plaster for six weeks.”
4verbcoverTo cover a surface thickly or completely.
“They plastered the town with posters for the concert.”
plaster is a dressing for a small wound.
Also accepted in games: band-aid, bandaid
Plaster does two jobs because it always did. Old English took plaster from Late Latin plastrum, a shortening of emplastrum, 'a plaster, a bandage' — a dressing you spread over a wound, exactly as you spread a mixture over a wall. It pushed the older English word clīþa out of use.
Latin
plastrum
Old English
plaster
Middle English
plaster
English, today
plaster
From Middle English plaster, plastre, from Old English plaster, from late Latin plastrum, shortened from Classical Latin emplastrum (“a plaster, bandage”); later reinforced by Anglo-Norman - plastre. Displaced native Old English clīþa. The verb is from Middle English plastren, from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA