hemicellulose
noun
hemicellulose is a noun meaning “A mixture of several plant polysaccharides, of smaller molecular weight than cellulose, that are soluble in dilute alkali; they are involved in the…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-E-M-I-C-E-L-L-U-L-O-S-E, and it appears about once in every 19 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of hemicellulose is hemicelluloses.
What does hemicellulose mean?
noun
- 1
A mixture of several plant polysaccharides, of smaller molecular weight than cellulose, that are soluble in dilute alkali; they are involved in the manufacture of paper, and are used in the production of furfural and ethanol.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of hemicellulose
- hemicelluloses plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is hemicellulose?
Hemicellulose appears about once in every 19 million words in written English, the 130,282nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Hemicellulose in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense mixture of polysaccharides:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | hémicellulose |
| German | Hemicellulose |
| Spanish | hemicelulosa |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does hemicellulose come from?
From hemi- (“half”) + cellulose.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).