One way to hold this word: a tall plant standing in the shallow water at the edge of the Nile, with a thick stem and a spray of thin leaves on top. Cut that stem into strips, lay the strips across each other, press them and dry them, and you have a light brown sheet you can write on. Everything the word means seems to travel along that one stem — first the plant, then the material made from it, then the written documents that survive on that material.
From the word’s history
Recorded in Middle English as papirus, borrowed from Latin papȳrus, itself from Ancient Greek πάπυρος, whose earlier origin is unknown. The word is first the plant's name, and the material takes the plant's name with it.
中古英文作 papirus，借自拉丁文 papȳrus，再往前是古希臘文 πάπυρος；更早的來源不明。這個字最先是植物的名字，材料則是連著植物的名字一起被帶過去的。
Wiktionary, "papyrus"
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。