Words & WritingGreek → English
Parchment
/ˈpɑːrtʃmənt/noun
Writing material made from treated animal skin.
The Greek roots
Πέργαμον
Pérgamon
Pergamon, city in Asia Minor
Literally: “stuff of Pergamon”
Follow a root:Πέργαμον1 word
The story of the word
Greek περγαμηνή means of Pergamon, the Hellenistic city whose library rivalled Alexandria's. Pliny reports that Ptolemy cut off the papyrus supply to strangle that rivalry, forcing Pergamon to perfect prepared skins; historians doubt the story but the name stuck. Late Latin pergamina crossed into Old French as parchemin, its shape muddled by Parthica pellis, Parthian leather. English has had it since about 1300.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- around 1300
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
parchment paperpergamenous
In a sentence
The charter is on parchment and still perfectly legible.