plastic [M17th] The Greek word plastikos meant ‘able to be moulded into different shapes’, and came from plassein ‘to mould’. When plastic entered English in the 17th century it had a similar meaning, but its main modern sense is for synthetic compounds developed in the early 20th century. This sense was first used in print in 1909 by the Belgian-born scientist Leo Baekeland, inventor of Bakelite. Plastic surgery refers to the shaping or transferring of tissue, and the first mention of the use of plastic surgery in treating injury was in 1837. Plaster [OE] comes from the same root. An early plaster was a bandage spread with a curative substance which usually became adhesive at body temperature. Use of the word to mean a soft mixture of lime mixed with sand or cement and water dates from Late Middle English. Plasma [M16th] also comes from plassein. Its use in medical contexts, for the material from which blood is moulded or made, dates from the mid 19th century, with the ionized gas dating from the early 20th, with the plasma screen appearing mid-century.