Words & WritingGreek → English
Bibliophile
/ˈbɪbliəfaɪl/noun
Someone who loves books as objects, not only as reading.
The Greek roots
βιβλίον
biblíon
book, small scroll
φίλος
phílos
loving, dear
Literally: “book lover”
The story of the word
βιβλίον is a diminutive of βύβλος, and βύβλος was papyrus, named after Byblos, the Phoenician port through which Greeks bought Egyptian writing material. So Bible, bibliography and bibliophile all trace to a harbour on the Lebanese coast. English took the word from French early in the nineteenth century, at the height of a collecting fever that contemporaries themselves called bibliomania.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
bibliographyBiblebibliomaniaphilosophy
In a sentence
Any bibliophile will tell you the binding matters as much as the text, which is exactly the problem.
She is a reader; her brother is a bibliophile, and they do not shop in the same places.