Word of the Day

: July 20, 2018

paste

verb PAIST

What It Means

1 : to strike hard at

2 : to beat or defeat soundly

paste in Context

"But, Moody came up next and pasted a liner into right for a single, which fueled a five-run inning for the Roughers." — Mike Tupa, The Bartlesville (Oklahoma) Examiner-Enterprise, 7 June 2018

"A year ago, the Miners were pasted by Texas early in the season but had reason to leave feeling all right about itself.… This one is a bit tougher to rationalize…." — Bret Bloomquist, The El Paso Times, 3 Sept. 2017

Did You Know?

We're not talking about adhesives here: the paste of interest here came to be as an alteration of the word baste, which means "to beat severely or soundly." (This baste is unrelated to the two distinct baste homographs that mean "to sew with long stitches" and "to moisten while cooking.") The exact origin of baste is uncertain, but it probably comes from the Old Norse word beysta, meaning "to bruise, thrash, or flog." Baste was first seen in the 16th century, but paste didn't turn up in print until the mid-19th century, and it only recently acquired its "defeat" sense. Baste is now less popular than paste, though its relative lambaste ("to beat" or "to censure") is prevalent.