means The routine documents — forms, files, records, and signatures — that an activity or transaction requires you to complete.

from A plain compound of "paper" and "work," dating to the 19th century. "Paper" itself comes through Old French from Latin "papyrus," the Egyptian reed once beaten into writing sheets along the Nile — so every form you fill out is a distant descendant of marsh grass. The word originally meant honest labor done on paper; the dread came later, free of charge.