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😷 Pale and unhealthy 👙 Nipple covers 🥟 A filled pastry 🧴 Sticky texture
pasty

pasty

9 6.7
Being pale and looking unhealthy, like after being ill
  • adjective
  • /ˈpeɪsti/
translation icon : pálido
  • After a long winter indoors, his face looked pasty and lifeless.
  • a pasty face
  • pasty white
  • pasty skin

So we have like we're pasty white and we got these flat tops.

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Examples

  • His eyes were almost closed, his face was puffed and splotched, his skin was pasty.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • Their cheeks were puffy and their skin was pasty-looking.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • There are many people out there who are as pasty as I am.

    Zoe Hong

  • I do have pasty, pasty skin.

    Waitress (2007)

  • His color was pasty white, so nothing had changed there.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • I just always felt I was too pasty.

    The King of Staten Island (2020)

  • A tentative look comes over his pasty white face.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • Irish skin was pasty, the picture of unhealth.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • Her hair was strewn out over the pillow, and her complexion was pasty white.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Slowly, Waddel's face, where the mask did not cover, turned from damson blue to pasty white.

    Fiction book (1990)

Synonyms

waxy
vspasty
4 4.5

Having pale skin that looks like wax

has a dull unhealthy pallor rather than a smooth shiny look
pastelike
vspasty
6.5

Very pale skin that looks unhealthy, often like after being ill

is the shorter common form used instead of the longer adjective

Antonyms

healthy
695 1.0

In good body and mind condition without sickness or injury

radiant
64 4.1

Shining or glowing brightly, often seeming very happy

Compounds

Cornish pasty
1 5.7

A baked pastry from Cornwall filled with meat and vegetables, folded and pressed on one side

How Pale

ghostly
40 4.7
ashen
5 5.1
pallid
3 7.5
pasty
9 6.7
pale
291 1.0

Surface Forms

pasty positive
pastier comparative
pastiest superlative

Morphology

pasty = paste (semi-transparent) = paste + y

Built from 'paste' + -y, but the shift from a paste-like appearance to a sickly complexion is only partly predictable.

Etymology

Pasty comes from the word paste, which means 'dough' or a soft, pale mixture, so you can picture pale, uncooked dough. So a pasty face looks pale and dough-like in colour.