From the word’s history
From paper + work.
由 paper「紙」加 work「工作」組成。
Picture the pile in the tray that is not the real job but has to be done anyway: forms to fill in, reports to write, boxes to tick. The word can point at the doing of it, or simply at the stack of documents itself.
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
paperworknoun/ˈpeɪ.pɚˌwɝk/
- 1
Routine work involving written documents.
- do paperwork
- 2
Written documents.
- The source stated that the alleged victims wanted the paperwork released after the settlement, but with names and identifiers removed.
- 3
Excessive paperwork, busy work, red tape.
- 4
slangCourt documents or pre-sentencing investigation reports detailing the prisoner's criminal history (usually in the context of discerning whether an inmate has been charged for sex-related offenses or is likely to be an informant).
- to have bad paperwork
- 5
A work in paper.
- Greatly you haue boaſted of, and much threatned theſe two places, (for euery later paperwork of yours is but a Tautology of the former) […]
- However, except for few experimental paperworks by Jackson Pollock on paper made by Douglass Howell and occasional prints, usually woodcuts or wood engravings on Japanese paper, it is only in the late 1950s and early 1960s that editions of prints on beautiful handmade papers began appearing, published by Tatyana Grosman at the Universal Limited Art Editions on Long Island.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。