Pulps

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. Soft, moist, and shapeless mass of material such as fruit, wood, or paper fiber; literary works characterized by sensational or low-quality content; to crush or macerate something into a wet, mushy state
2. The soft, crushed substance derived from plants or fruits; inexpensive, mass-produced fiction often focusing on lurid or thrilling themes; the process of breaking down a solid material into a moist, fibrous mass
3. A moist, crushed mixture typically made from natural fibers like wood or fruit flesh; popular cheap literature known for sensational stories; action of grinding or mashing something into a soft, lumped consistency

Etymology: "Pulps" is the plural of "pulp," so its history is that of the base noun. English took "pulp" from Latin "pulpa," meaning flesh or soft fleshy part, and it reached English through Middle English "pulpe." The Latin sense of soft, fleshy matter stayed close to the word's core, which explains why the fruit sense and the mashed-wood sense both developed from the same idea of something soft and yielding. The sense of cheap, sensational fiction came much later. Printed on coarse, inexpensive wood-pulp paper, these magazines were nicknamed "pulps" because of the material they were printed on, and the name stuck to the lurid stories they carried. The jump from a soft mass to a genre of literature is one of the more unexpected routes this word has taken.

Synonyms: mashes, purees, pastes

Antonyms: solids, chunks