Word.ws English Dictionary

papier-mache

papier-mache 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-mache

third-person singular presentpapier-maches
present participlepapier-maching
past participlepapier-mached
pastpapier-mached
past participlepapier-macheed
pastpapier-macheed

Questions about papier-mache

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

Words near papier-mache in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: papier-mache (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.

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Cite this entry: “papier-mache.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/papier-mache. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.