cement (n.)

kind of mortar or other substance that hardens as it dries, used to bind, c. 1300, from Old French ciment "cement, mortar, pitch," from Latin cæmenta "stone chips used for making mortar" (singular caementum), from caedere "to cut down, chop, beat, hew, fell, slay" (from PIE root *kae-id- "to strike"). The sense evolution from "small broken stones" to "powdered stones used in construction" took place before the word reached English. Cement-mixer is from 1875.

The term properly includes papier maché, gums, glues, mucilages, limes, mortars, and a great number of compounds of such nature as to admit of their assuming, under certain conditions, sticky, tenacious, or stone-like consistency. [Century Dictionary]

c. 1400,  "to bind (solid bodies) together with or as with cement," from cement (n.) or Old French cimenter. Figurative sense "to unite firmly" is from c. 1600. Related: Cemented; cementing.