Plaster is a soft, pasty material that hardens when it dries, used to cover walls or make casts and molds.
From Old English 'plaster' meaning 'medicinal spread on cloth', from Latin 'emplastrum', from Greek 'emplastron' meaning 'to daub on'. It first referred to healing pastes before being used for building walls.
The tiny 'plaster' on a cut and the plaster on a wall both come from the idea of smearing a paste that hardens. Ancient doctors and builders were using the same basic trick: spread, stick, and let time do the rest.
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