papers

UK/ˈpeɪpəz//ˈpeɪpɚz/

papers is the plural of paper.

papers is the third-person singular simple present indicative of paper.

Noun

papers pl (plural only)

(plural, plural-only) Official documents or identification, as a passport.
- He lost his papers while travelling and had a hard time getting home.
- Toward the end of the war, Benoit was sent off on his own with forged papers; he wound up working as a horse groom at a chalet in the Loire valley. Mandelbrot describes this harrowing youth with great sangfroid.2013 January, Brian Hayes, “Father of Fractals”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, page 62
(plural, plural-only) A collection of documents, unpublished writing or correspondence in an archive or library collection.
(Australia, plural, plural-only) cigarette papers
- "All right, if you happen to be over that way, just get me some fags. No, wait a shake, get me a tin of cigarette tobacco and some papers."1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 76

paper (countable and uncountable, plural papers)

A sheet material typically used for writing on or printing on (or as a non-waterproof container), usually made by draining cellulose fibres from a suspension in water.
- Draw on the paper! Not on the walls!
An open hand (a handshape resembling a sheet of paper), that beats rock and loses to scissors. It loses to lizard and beats Spock in rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock.
A written document, generally shorter than a book; usually written as a school assignment or a government report.
- Near-synonym: report
A written document that reports scientific or academic research and is usually subjected to peer review before publication in a scientific journal (as a journal article or the manuscript for one) or in the proceedings of a scientific or academic meeting (such as a conference, workshop, or symposium).
- Their team published a paper in the leading journal of their field, and its widespread impact elevated the reputation of their university department.
(Hong-Kong, UK) A set of examination questions to be answered at one session.
(slang) Money.

129 more phrasesFewer phrases

What does papers mean?: Papers means official documents or identification, as a passport.
What is papers the plural of?: Papers is the plural of paper.
What part of speech is papers?: Papers is a noun.
How do you pronounce papers?: Papers is pronounced /ˈpeɪpɚz/ (US).

Adapted from Wiktionary: papers (page history and authors); paper (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-papers.ogg.

Cite this entry: “papers.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/papers. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.