means The Japanese art of folding paper into shapes and figures without cutting or gluing.

from Straight from Japanese: 'ori' (folding) plus 'kami' (paper) — the 'k' softening to 'g' when the words join. The paper itself arrived from China centuries before the word did, but the term 'origami' is comparatively modern, gaining wide use in Japan only over the last century or so and spreading worldwide from there.