Paper
thin, flexible material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging
Paper is a thin sheet of matted cellulose fibers. Largely derived from lignocellulose, paper is created from a pulp dissolved into a slurry that is drained and dried into sheets. Different types of paper are defined by constituent fiber, paper pulp, sizing, coating, paper size, paper density and grammage.
The papermaking process developed in East Asia at least as early as 105 CE by the Han court eunuch Cai Lun, although archaeological evidence exists of 2nd century BCE paper-like material in China. Before the industrialization of paper production, the most common paper was rag paper, made from discarded natural fiber textiles collected by ragpickers. The 1843 invention of wood pulp, coupled with the Second Industrial Revolution, made pulpwood paper the dominant variety to this day.
Etymology
The word paper is etymologically derived from Latin papyrus, which comes from the Greek πᾰ́πῡρος (pápūros), the word for the Cyperus papyrus plant. Papyrus is a thick, paper-like material produced from the pith of the Cyperus papyrus plant, which was used in ancient Egypt and other Mediterranean cultures for writing before the introduction of paper. Although the word paper is etymologically derived from papyrus, the two are separate technological developments that use different materials and production methods. Papyrus is a lamination of natural plant fibre, while paper is manufactured from fibres whose properties have been changed by maceration.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Paper” is thin, flexible material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Paper, thin and flexible, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11472. The Library of Congress control number is sh85097578. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1843.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paper” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.