Pamphlet

   The background of the common word pamphlet may be entirely amatory. In the twelfth century a Latin poem titled Pamphilus, seu de Amore took the staid people of that era by storm. The author of this Latin poem is unknown, but the verses, some three pages in length, became among the best-known of the Middle Ages. This "love-making" poem was so popular that it came to be called simply Pamphilus. After the invention of the printing press, the poem appeared in booklet form, and the title, over time, became the one-word Pamphlet. Then a pamphlet (lower case p) came to be defined as a paper-bound or unbound booklet of fewer than a hundred pages. The word pamphlet, etymologically, stems from Greek pamphilos, meaning "beloved by all."