Words & WritingGreek → English
Papyrus
/pəˈpaɪrəs/noun
A Nile marsh reed, and the writing material made by pressing strips of its pith into sheets.
The Greek roots
πάπυρος
pápyros
papyrus plant
Literally: “the papyrus reed”
Follow a root:πάπυρος3 words
The story of the word
Πάπυρος is itself a loan into Greek, almost certainly from Egyptian, and its exact source word is unknown. Everything English says about writing surfaces comes off it: Latin papyrus, Old French papier, English paper, which is now made from wood and named after a reed. Bible arrives by the same trade, through Βύβλος, the Phoenician port that shipped papyrus to Greece.
- How it travelled
- Egyptian → Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
paperpapier-mâchépapyrology
In a sentence
The letter survives on a scrap of papyrus about the size of a hand.