Word.ws English Dictionary

papier-maché

papier-maché is the alternative spelling of papier-mâché.

Meaning of papier-mâché

Noun

papier-mâché (uncountable)

  1. A composite material created by pulping paper or layering paper strips with an adhesive such as glue, starch or paste, which dries to form a durable, lightweight and moldable substance.
    • She sat completely alone at the very back of the sea-themed restaurant, amid papier-mâché starfish and plastic shrimp.2002, Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man, Penguin Books (2003), page 236

See all 3 meanings of papier-mâché

Forms of papier-maché

third-person singular presentpapier-machés
present participlepapier-machéing
past participlepapier-machéd
pastpapier-machéd
past participlepapier-machéed
pastpapier-machéed

Questions about papier-maché

What is papier-maché the alternative spelling of?
Papier-maché is the alternative spelling of papier-mâché.

Words near papier-maché in the dictionary

  1. papicides
  2. papier collé
  3. papier mache
  4. papier maches
  5. papier-mache
  6. papier-maché
  7. papier-mâché
  8. papier-mâchéd
  9. papier-mâchéed
  10. papier-mâchéing
  11. papier-mâchés

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: papier-maché (page history and authors); papier-mâché (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “papier-maché.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/papier-mach%C3%A9. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.