A pencil is a writing or drawing device consisting of a slippery, thin stick of pigment (usually graphite, but can also be colored pigment or charcoal) and clay, usually encased in a thin wood cylinder, though paper and plastic sheaths are also used. Pencils are noticeably distinct from pens, which use a liquid marking material. The archetypal pencil may have been the stylus, which was a thin metal stick, often made from lead and used for scratching in papyrus, a form of early paper.

They were used extensively by the ancient Egyptians and Romans. The word pencil comes from the Latin word pencillus which means "little tail." Some time before 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), an enormous deposit of graphite was discovered on the approach to Grey Knotts from the hamlet of Seathwaite near Borrowdale parish, Cumbria, England. The locals found that it was very useful for marking sheep.

This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and solid, and it could easily be sawn into sticks. This remains the only large scale deposit of graphite ever found in this solid form. Chemistry was in its infancy and the substance was thought to be a form of lead.

Consequently, it was called plumbago (Latin for "lead ore"). The black core of pencils is still referred to as “lead,” even though it never contained the element lead. In German, the word for pencil still is Bleistift, literally "lead stick".

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