papyrus

1. 1.

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

   Broaderpaper
2. 2.

   tall sedge of the Nile valley yielding fiber that served many purposes in historic times

   SynonymsEgyptian paper reedEgyptian paper rushpaper rushpaper plantCyperus papyrus

   Broadersedge

   Part ofCyperus
3. 3.

   a document written on papyrus

   Broaderdocument

Other forms of papyrus

plural

papyri

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about papyrus

What does papyrus mean?

papyrus means "paper made from the papyrus plant by cutting it in strips and pressing it flat; used by ancient Egyptians and Greeks and Romans". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in papyrus?

papyrus has 3 syllables: pa-py-rus. The stress falls on "pa".

What is another word for papyrus?

Close synonyms include Egyptian paper reed, Egyptian paper rush, paper rush, paper plant, Cyperus papyrus. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is papyrus a common word?

papyrus is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.