A small bag or container used for money or personal items.
A familiar word, four lives.
Simplified path. The puzzle showed the main steps; the full route is being checked.
Greek
byrsa
‘An animal hide’
into Latin
Latin
bursa
‘A hide; later a leather bag’
into Middle English
Middle English
purs
‘A purse’
became English
English
purse
‘The small bag’
Purse reaches back through English and Latin forms to Greek byrsa, a hide. A material supplied a name for a bag made from it. The modern purse can be made from many materials while keeping that older leather association in its history.
These are selected stages, not every spelling or intermediary. The story identifies omitted links; older forms did not all disappear at once.
Names of materials often extend to objects made from them.