In English, paprika usually refers to a spice made from peppers. I don't know the history of it, but I assume it's a translation issue that led to the two words referring to essentially the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The whole calling it peppers part is the mistake here: Some varieties of capsicum are spicy, like pepper is, so capsicum also got the name pepper.

OG pepper is black pepper, aka peppercorn. That had the name way before bell pepper did, which is why in other languages, bell peppers aren't generally called pepper.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

Capsicum is also the family of the plant, so it makes sense to call it that.

It could also be that the name was taken from the French (or other language maybe) "poivron" which is pretty close to "poivre," which is the word for pepper/peppercorn.