noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A plant (Cyperus papyrus) in the sedge family, native to the Nile river valley, paper reed. uncountable, usually
2. 2
   a document written on papyrus wordnet
3. 3
   A material similar to paper made from the papyrus plant. uncountable, usually
4. 4
   tall sedge of the Nile valley yielding fiber that served many purposes in historic times wordnet
5. 5
   A scroll or document written on papyrus. countable, usually

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6. 6
   paper made from the papyrus plant by cutting it in strips and pressing it flat; used by ancient Egyptians and Greeks and Romans wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

bibluscyperus papyrusegyptian paper reedegyptian paper rushgrassoats

Example

More examples

"The words of the spell were written on papyrus."

Etymology

From Middle English papirus, borrowed from Latin papȳrus, from Ancient Greek πάπυρος (pápuros), of unknown origin. Doublet of papyros.

Related phrases

papyrus capitalpapyrus columnpapyrus cutterpapyrus fragmentpapyrus leafpapyrus plantpapyrus rollpapyrus rootpapyrus tree

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.