PAPYRUS • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Papyrus

Translators

Dictionaries

Courses

Other

Home

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

noun

Papyrus n. (pl. papyri)

(Bot.) A tall rushlike plant (Cyperus Papyrus) of the Sedge family, formerly growing in Egypt, and now found in Abyssinia, Syria, Sicily, etc. The stem is triangular and about an inch thick.

The material upon which the ancient Egyptians wrote. It was formed by cutting the stem of the plant into thin longitudinal slices, which were gummed together and pressed.

A manuscript written on papyrus; esp., pl., written scrolls made of papyrus; as, the papyri of Egypt or Herculaneum.

See images of 'Papyrus'

Etymology of 'Papyrus'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Papyrus" Quotes from Famous Books

... documents, e.g. clay tablets and discs (so far in Crete only), but nothing of more perishable nature, such as skin, papyrus, &c.; engraved gems and gem impressions; legends written with pigment on pottery (rare); characters incised on stone or pottery. These show two main systems ...

— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars of some of the treasures ...

— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... much to do with the invention of printing that I feel obliged to tarry a little longer at this preliminary stage. The most important of all the ancient materials for writing upon were papyrus, parchment, and vellum; and on these substances nearly all our most valuable manuscripts were written. Papyrus, or paper-rush, is a large fibrous plant which abounds in the marshes of Egypt, especially near the borders of the Nile. It was manufactured into a thick sort of paper at a very ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... they were at the rice mill, and a July day was breaking. Isaka lay and listened to the lapping of the lake water lapping of the water in the greatest of African lakes. He was lying beside a creek that was papyrus-fringed with curtains of feathery green. A cloud of lake flies hung dark in the distance. The soft lake haze redeemed landscape and waterscape now from overclarity of outline the besetting blemish, as some might think, of its mid-day. Isaka was really ill that morning. He could hardly ...

— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps

... literature. The funerary cult of Khufu and Khafr[e] was practised under the twenty-sixth dynasty, when so much that had fallen into disuse and been forgotten was revived. Khufu is a leading figure in an ancient Egyptian story (Papyrus Westcar), but it is unfortunately incomplete. He was the founder of the fourth dynasty, and was probably born in Middle Egypt near Beni Hasan, in a town afterwards known as "Khufu's Nurse," but was connected with the Memphite third dynasty. Two tablets at the mines of Wadi ...

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

More quotes...