Stationery - Statinery Stationery, a shortening, recorded since 1727, of stationery wares (circa 1680). Stationery Wares itself derived from stationer "seller of books and paper," 1311, from Medieval Latin stationarius "stationary seller," from Latin statio "station, stand", is a general name given to paper and office supplies such as envelopes, notepads, pens, pencils, erasers, paper clips, staples et alia.

The term stationery (Statinary) is frequently used to refer more specifically to paper used for written correspondence, usually decorated or personalized with matching envelopes.

Originally the term stationery (Statinary) referred to all products sold by a stationer, whose name indicates that his book shop was on a fixed spot, usually near a university, and permanent, while medieval trading was mainly ambulant, by peddlers (including chapmen, who sold books) and others (such as farmers and craftsmen) at non-permanent markets such as fairs.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - A standout law school student has been charged with using a congressman's signature machine and official stationery to try to obtain visas for relatives and others in his native Cameroon.

By extension the term has been applied to decorative backgrounds that may be attached to e-mail correspondence (though this has never found favor) or to describe templates typically used by home users in desktop publishing software to make, for example, party invitations.

The word is sometimes confused with the homophone adjective stationary, meaning "not moving", which is also derived from Latin statio. Mnemonics are "stationery has an e for envelope"; and "stationers" sell "stationery."

Stationary can mean:

Fixed in position, or mode : immobile.
Unchanging in condition or character.
In statistics: a stationary process.
In mathematics: a stationary point.
In mathematics: a stationary set.
In physics: a stationary physical process.

The word is sometimes confused with stationery (Statinary), meaning paper or office supplies. However also see stationary word origin, which shows that "stationary" is the original spelling and is also the most common spelling today.