Definition of "esparto" [es•par•to]

• A tough, wiry grass (Stipa tenacissima) of northern Africa, yielding a fiber used in making paper and as cordage. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Kingdom the conditions of its competition are of a more special kind by reason of the firm foothold of esparto, which is a most important staple in the manufacture of fine printings."
• "Paper itself was also becoming less expensive because of a combination of improved manufacturing at paper mills and the use of less expensive raw materials such as esparto grass."
• "Its economic prospects could hardly be called promising; in the years after World War II, its leading exports were two: esparto, a type of grass used to make paper for currency bills, and scrap metal scavenged from the rusting tanks and trucks and weaponry that had been left behind by the Axis and Allied Armies."