Paper

How to spell paper

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce paper

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does paper mean?

1. nounA thin sheet material made from pressed plant fibres, used for writing, printing, or wrapping.
2. nounA daily or weekly printed publication of news, shortened from newspaper.
3. nounA written academic essay, report, or scholarly piece on a particular subject.
4. verbTo cover a wall or surface with decorative wallpaper.

Paper in a sentence

• noun

  She fed a fresh sheet of paper into the printer.

• noun

  Every morning he reads the paper over coffee.

• noun

  She presented her research paper at the conference.

• verb

  They plan to paper the hallway in a striped pattern.

• noun

  He wrapped the gift in plain brown paper.

• noun

  The local paper ran a story about the new bypass.

Where does paper come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek 'papyros', the name of the tall reed that grew along the Nile and whose pith was sliced, pressed, and dried into the earliest writing sheets of the ancient world. Latin took this in as 'papyrus', and it travelled through Old French as 'papier' before settling into English in the 1300s. What is curious is that true paper, the pulped-fibre material invented in China, is not made from papyrus at all, yet it inherited the older reed's name because it served the same purpose. The spelling kept the single Greek 'p' sounds rather than doubling, which is why 'paper' has no surprise letters; its quiet root, papyrus, also gave us the modern word 'papyrus' itself, still used for the ancient material.

How the word is built

• paper (from Latin papyrus, the reed used as a writing surface)