To provide a hot-melt adhesive for the use in a paper field such as bookbinding, box-making and bag-making processes and free from the problems of widely used ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer comprising the difficulty in the regeneration treatment of waste paper in water owing to the hydrophobic nature of the resin in spite of its excellent adhesivity, workability and flexibility.

The heat-sensitive adhesive consists of a starch paste liquid containing 10-100 pts.wt. of a starch plasticizer based on 100 pts.wt. of starch and having a viscosity of 100-200,000 cPs at 30°C and 50% concentration. The adhesive can be used as a water-soluble hot-melt adhesive giving high adhesive force and water-dissolution rate after the preliminary drying treatment.