Pulping

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The procedure of altering solid materials into a semiliquid state for industrial applications involves breaking down fibrous substances into a slurry-like mixture
2. The method of converting solid organic matter into a soft, pliable substance for the creation of products such as paper
3. The process by which solid substances are transformed into a wet, mushy consistency suitable for further processing

Etymology: "Pulping" is the present participle of "pulp", so its history is the history of the base word. "Pulp" came into Middle English as "pulpe", borrowed from Latin "pulpa", which meant flesh, the soft fleshy part of something, or the pulp of fruit. The sense of a soft, moist mass that can be shaped is the original one, and the Latin word carried it long before anyone applied it to wood. The industrial meaning arrived much later. Making paper from fibres mashed into a wet mass was the step that let the old idea of soft pulpy stuff be applied to cellulose, and the verb "to pulp" came to name the process of reducing wood, rags or straw into that same kind of mass. So the word that once described fruit flesh now describes the first stage of a sheet of paper.

Synonyms: processing, mashing