Repapering

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Putting fresh wallpaper on the walls of a room that has already been decorated before
2. Redecorating a space by applying new paper to its surfaces in place of the old covering
3. Renewing the wall coverings of a room by pasting new sheets over or in place of the existing ones

Etymology: "Repapering" is simply the present participle of "repaper", so the history lies in its two parts. The prefix "re-" means "again" or "anew", and it comes from Latin "re-", ultimately of Proto-Italic origin, passing through Old French "re-" into Middle English. The base "paper" has a far longer road behind it: it descends from ancient Greek "pápuros", the name of the papyrus plant whose pith was pressed into writing sheets, which the Romans borrowed as "papyrus". Along the way the word splintered into several forms. Old Catalan "paper" and Anglo-Norman "paper" reached English as Middle English "paper", the material on which people wrote, so the Greek plant name ended up naming the sheet itself. English then joined the two parts to make "repaper", meaning to paper a surface again, most often a wall decorated with fresh wallpaper.

Synonyms: redecorating, rewallpapering

Antonyms: stripping