use-icon

HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY

To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key.

Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window.

guide to the dictionary

use-icon

THE USAGE PANEL

The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions.

The Panelists

open-icon

AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP

The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android.

scroll-icon

THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG

The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more.

100-words-icon

See word lists from the best-selling 100 Words Series!

Find out more!

open-icon

INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES?

Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com

-plastic
Share:
suff.
Forming; growing; changing; developing: metaplastic.

[Greek plastikos, fit for molding; see PLASTIC.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 
plas·tic (plăstĭk)
Share:
adj.
1. Capable of being shaped or formed: plastic material such as clay. See Synonyms at malleable.
2. Relating to or dealing with shaping or modeling: the plastic art of sculpture.
3. Having the qualities of sculpture; well-formed: "the astonishing plastic beauty of the chorus girls" (Frank Harris).
4. Giving form or shape to a substance: the plastic forces that create and wear down a mountain range.
5. Easily influenced; impressionable: "The plastic mind of the bank clerk had been ... distorted by what he had read" (Rudyard Kipling).
6. Made of a plastic or plastics: a plastic garden hose.
7. Physics Capable of undergoing continuous deformation without rupture or relaxation.
8. Biology
a. Capable of building tissue; formative.
b. Able to change and adapt, especially by acquiring alternative pathways for sensory perception or motor skills. Used of the central nervous system.
9. Marked by artificiality or superficiality: a plastic world of fad, hype, and sensation.
10. Informal Of or obtained by means of credit cards: plastic money.
n.
1. Any of various organic compounds produced by polymerization, capable of being molded, extruded, cast into various shapes and films, or drawn into filaments used as textile fibers.
2. Informal A credit card or credit cards: would accept cash or plastic in payment.

[Latin plasticus, from Greek plastikos, from plastos, molded, from plassein, to mold; see pelə-2 in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]

plasti·cal·ly adv.
plas·tici·ty (-tĭsĭ-tē) n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.