1
: made of pasteboard
2
: sham, unsubstantial
… prefabricated plots and pasteboard heroes …—
Peter Andrews
Peter AndrewsExamples of pasteboard in a Sentence
Noun
those pasteboards I got from a scalper cost me four times their face value
Recent Examples on the Web
Elaine Glusac, San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 Feb. 2024
Her three magnificent novels about the life and times of Thomas Cromwell—Henry VIII’s fixer-in-chief, who oversaw England’s rupture with the Church of Rome—stripped the robes of cliché and hindsight from one of history’s pasteboard ogres.
—Boyd Tonkin, WSJ, 30 Sep. 2022
As MacRumors reminds us, Apple introduced a privacy feature in iOS 16 which forces apps to ask permission before accessing your pasteboard to paste content from other apps.
—Jacob Siegal, BGR, 19 Sep. 2022
In all, the Oroville Lake Marinas company removed 130 houseboats; floating recreation palaces such as the Monte-Carol and La Bella Vita now sit in a parking lot on stacks of pasteboard props.
—Scott Wilson, Washington Post, 19 June 2021
Tickets are all mobile — no pasteboard stubs to keep for the scrapbook anymore.
—Madalyn Mendoza, San Antonio Express-News, 13 Mar. 2021
If theme parks, with their pasteboard main streets, reek of a bland, safe, homogenized, white bread America, the Renaissance Faire is at the other end of the social spectrum, a whiff of the occult, a flash of danger and a hint of the erotic.
—Kathy Flanigan, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2 June 2020
The film draws on Sayat Nova’s imagery: angels with flat halos and wooden wings, a pasteboard cloud descending as a vision, the constant repetition of key props including books, silver balls and ornate rugs.
—New York Times, 24 May 2018
The thin strips of pasteboard nailed to the walls was a ramshackle form of insulation, and textbook tinder.
—Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star, 20 Dec. 2017
Janine Latus, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Feb. 2022
All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks.
—Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 31 Jan. 2018
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Noun
It is filled with antiques from the earliest period when the family of Francis Watlington — a sea captain, harbor master and state legislator — resided here, including a game table set with 19th century pasteboard playing cards.
—Elaine Glusac, San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 Feb. 2024
Her three magnificent novels about the life and times of Thomas Cromwell—Henry VIII’s fixer-in-chief, who oversaw England’s rupture with the Church of Rome—stripped the robes of cliché and hindsight from one of history’s pasteboard ogres.
—Boyd Tonkin, WSJ, 30 Sep. 2022
As MacRumors reminds us, Apple introduced a privacy feature in iOS 16 which forces apps to ask permission before accessing your pasteboard to paste content from other apps.
—Jacob Siegal, BGR, 19 Sep. 2022
In all, the Oroville Lake Marinas company removed 130 houseboats; floating recreation palaces such as the Monte-Carol and La Bella Vita now sit in a parking lot on stacks of pasteboard props.
—Scott Wilson, Washington Post, 19 June 2021
Tickets are all mobile — no pasteboard stubs to keep for the scrapbook anymore.
—Madalyn Mendoza, San Antonio Express-News, 13 Mar. 2021
If theme parks, with their pasteboard main streets, reek of a bland, safe, homogenized, white bread America, the Renaissance Faire is at the other end of the social spectrum, a whiff of the occult, a flash of danger and a hint of the erotic.
—Kathy Flanigan, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2 June 2020
The film draws on Sayat Nova’s imagery: angels with flat halos and wooden wings, a pasteboard cloud descending as a vision, the constant repetition of key props including books, silver balls and ornate rugs.
—New York Times, 24 May 2018
The thin strips of pasteboard nailed to the walls was a ramshackle form of insulation, and textbook tinder.
—Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star, 20 Dec. 2017
Adjective
Inside the building were wooden and pasteboard boxes filled with roughly 88,000 negatives taken by Pruitt between 1916 and 1960.
—Janine Latus, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Feb. 2022
All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks.
—Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 31 Jan. 2018
Cite this Entry
“Pasteboard.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pasteboard. Accessed 9 Nov. 2025.
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