means A simple bound or digital pad of blank paper—or a barebones text-editing program—for jotting down quick notes.

from A plain compound of "note" and "pad." "Note" descends from Latin "nota," a mark or sign, by way of Old French. "Pad" is the curious one: it likely comes from a Low German or Dutch word for a soft cushion or bundle (related to "paden"), and by the 19th century English had stretched it to mean a thick gathering of paper sheets bound at one edge—soft, layered, cushion-like. Stack notes on a pad and you get the notepad; Microsoft borrowed the word wholesale for its famously minimal text editor.