Papers

How to spell papers

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce papers

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does papers mean?

1. nounSheets of written or printed material, especially documents, records, or written work.
2. nounA person's official identification or legal documents, such as a passport or visa.
3. nounDaily or weekly printed news publications.

Papers in a sentence

• She shuffled the loose papers into a neat pile before the meeting.

• The border guard asked to see their travel papers at the checkpoint.

• The scandal made the front page of all the morning papers.

• The lawyer spread the contract papers across the table.

• Keep your immigration papers in a safe place while abroad.

• He reads two papers over breakfast every day.

Where does papers come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin papyrus, the name of the tall reed whose pith the Egyptians beat into sheets for writing, which in turn came from the Greek papyros. Latin papyrus passed into Old French as papier, and Middle English borrowed it around the 1300s as the everyday word for the new writing material made from pulped fibre. From the physical sheet the sense broadened to cover anything written on such sheets: documents, letters, official records, and printed news-sheets. The plural papers gathered up these uses, coming to mean a person's official documents or a stack of written work. The silent linkage to papyrus is a useful reminder that the single p in the middle is never doubled.

How the word is built

• paper (from Latin papyrus, the writing reed)
• -s (plural)