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The corpus record — Latin

papyrus

papyrus · m

the paper-reed

Generated live from the audited Latin corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.

Where it lives

What it meant

păpȳrus — Lewis & Short

păpȳrus, i, m. and f., and păpȳ-rum, i, n., = pa/puros,

I the paper-reed, papyrus.
I Lit.: papyrum ergo nascitur in palustribus Aegypti, aut quiescentibus Nili aquis ... triangulis lateribus, decem non amplius cubitorum longitudine in gracilitatem fastigatum, Plin. 13, 11, 22, § 71: in Euphrate, id. 13, 11, 22, § 73. Ships were made of it, id. ib.; Luc. 4, 136: in vasis papyri super aquas, Vulg. Isa. 18, 2; and sails and cordage from its bark, Cels. 5, 28, 12; Col. 6, 6, 4; Pall. 3, 33; also shoes, Mart. Cap. 2, § 115; Tert. Carm. ad Sen. 22; and wicks, Veg. Vet. 2, 57; the roots were used instead of wood, Plin. 13, 11, 22, § 72; and likewise for funeral piles, Mart. 10, 97, 1.—
II Transf.
A A garment made from the bark of the papyrus: succinctus patriā papyro, Juv. 4, 24.—
B Paper made of papyrus-stalk (cf.: liber, charta), Juv. 7, 101; Cat. 35, 1; Mart. 3, 2, 4.

In the wild

6 of 36 attestations shown.

Where it came from

  • Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. papyrus (scan pp. 504-505; entry #8205).

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Latin text and lemmatization derived from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit), CC BY-SA 4.0. Lewis & Short (public domain) via Perseus. This derived data is shared under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.