What does "beaten to a pulp" mean ? why "pulp"? what alludes to?

busterwasmycat

pulp is a mashed up mix of liquid and shredded/mashed solids. Like heavily chewed food, perhaps. It doesn't allude to anything, it is very descriptive. the once-body (usually only the head has been pulverized) is no longer recognizable as a human body, it is a mish-mash of liquids and bits of flesh and bone. Someone was extremely angry to do that to another human. that is not the act of a sane person. So, the idiom is a hyperbole. They usually do not mean a literal pulp, although that has happened and is where the idea comes from.

Jake No Chat

pulp = pulverized material. so beaten to a pulp just means that someone or something was beaten so bad that what was left was a lumpy mass of goo.

bluebellbkk

Pulp is soft and mushy.

Anonymous: https

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/pulp

Richard

Perhaps it refers to a piece of fruit. If you smash up a piece of fruit, the substance breaks down to pulp. (Think of an orange.)

p

Something along the lines, as mashed up so badly that you can not even recognize it. Think of orange pulp.

Anonymous

It mean that the softer parts of the body [muscles, innards, even skin] have been beaten repeatedly with a blunt instrument, resulting in a sort of implosion of injuries. If a person were stabbed, or struck neatly on the knees with a hammer, we would probably not say s/he was beaten to a pulp.

RP

Pulp is a remnant of wood processing and, thus, represents only a fragment of the whole (wood). Hence, if one is beaten to a pulp, s/he is basically decimated.

The 90 Year Old: Homeless, Unemployed, Virgin

I guess your body is smashed

Rochelle

Pulp like a puree,so basically your face mashed in.