pulp

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a soft, wet, shapeless mass made by crushing or breaking down material

   The fallen peaches had been crushed to a sticky pulp.

2. 2
   noun

   the soft, moist flesh inside a fruit or vegetable

   Scoop out the melon pulp and discard the seeds.

3. 3
   noun

   a wet mixture of wood, cellulose, or other fibers used to make paper

   The mill cooks wood chips until they break down into pulp for paper.

4. 4
   noun

   sensational popular fiction, originally printed in cheap magazines on rough wood-pulp paper

   She found the story in a 1930s pulp devoted to detective fiction.

From Middle English pulpe, borrowed from Latin pulpa, 'flesh or soft substance.' The paper-making sense arose for a mass of macerated fibers. Pulp magazines were named for their inexpensive wood-pulp paper, and the material name then came to denote their fast, sensational style of fiction.

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