Words & WritingGreek → English
Bibliography
/ˌbɪbliˈɑːɡrəfi/noun
A list of the books and sources used or recommended in a work.
The Greek roots
βιβλίον
biblíon
book, papyrus roll
γράφειν
gráphein
to write
Literally: “book-writing”
The story of the word
A βιβλιογράφος in Greek was a copyist, someone who wrote books out by hand rather than someone who listed them. The listing sense came through French bibliographie and settled in English only in the 19th century. βιβλίον is a diminutive of βύβλος, the papyrus, which took its name from Byblos, the Phoenician port that shipped the stuff to Greece.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
biblebibliophilebibliomaniabiblical
In a sentence
Half his bibliography was in German, which slowed the marking down considerably.