Soft or semi-liquid food, usually given to babies or sick people; bland, unoriginal, or worthless content or entertainment.
From Middle English 'pappe,' likely from a Scandinavian language, possibly imitative of soft sounds. The word originally described soft porridge before expanding to mean any bland content.
The word 'pap' shows how language divides into specialized meanings: a baby's soft food became slang for any unsubstantial content, and 'pap smear' (cervical cancer screening) took the word into medical terminology.
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