Word of the Week – Plastic

Did you know that plastic did NOT mean a material when the word was first coined?

Instead, plastic, when it debuted in English around 1640, referred to a PROPERTY of material, namely something “capable of shaping or molding matter.” It comes to English from the Greek plastikos, meaning “fit for molding.” So clay would be plastic, as an example. In fact, the Greeks often used the word in reference to the arts, particularly sculpture, with plastos, meaning “molded.” Look familiar? It’s also where plaster comes from!

Because plastic things were moldable, they were also remoldable, and by 1791, the word was used for things “capable of changing or receiving a new direction.”

And then, because of this ability to change the structure of something, the word was applied to medical procedures that required creating or remedied a structure that was deficient, hence plastic surgery.

So when did it come to mean a particular material? Not until the early 1900s! As the material we call plastic was invented, it was given that name because it had that property, and cultural slang soon picked it up. By 1909, plastic meant “something made of a plastic material,” and it soon became so well known that by the 1960s, plastic came to mean “fake, superficial” because it was manmade material often used for cheap imitations.

Word Nerds Merch!