Definition
nounA collection of sheets of paper bound together to hinge at one edge, containing printed or written material, pictures, etc.
nounA long work fit for publication, typically prose, such as a novel or textbook, and typically published as such a bound collection of sheets, but now sometimes electronically as an e-book.
Sentence Examples
Take a book and read it.
I read a book while eating.
The book aims to cover all aspects of city life.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂ǵosder.?
Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂g-der.?
Proto-Germanic *bōks
Proto-West Germanic *bōk
Old English bōc
Middle English bok
English book
From Middle English bok, book, from Old English bōc, from Proto-West Germanic *bōk, from Proto-Germanic *bōks. Bookmaker sense by clipping.
Cognates
Cognate with Scots beuk, buik, buke (“book”), Yola buke (“book”), North Frisian Bok, buk, bök (“book”), Saterland Frisian Bouk (“book”), West Frisian, Dutch boek (“book”), Alemannic German Buech (“book”), Bavarian Buach (“book”), Central Franconian Booch, Buch (“book”), German, Luxembourgish Buch (“book”), German Low German Book (“book”), Limburgish book, Bouk (“book”), Vilamovian büch (“book”), Yiddish בוך (bukh, “book”), Danish bog (“book”), Elfdalian buok (“book”), Faroese, Icelandic bók (“book”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish bok (“book”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Knowing I lou'd my bookes, he furniſhd me / From mine owne Library, with volumes, that / I prize aboue my Dukedome."
— 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 3, column 1:
"I repeat: it suffices that a book be possible for it to exist. Only the impossible is excluded. For example: no book can be a ladder, although no doubt there are books which discuss and negate and demonstrate this possibility and others whose structure corresponds to that of a ladder."
— 1962, Luis Borges, translated by James East Irby, The Library of Babel:
"I can be anything.
Take a look!
It's in a book:
A reading rainbow."
— 1983, Steve Horelick et al., Reading Rainbow:
"Trefusis's quarters could be described in one word. Books. Books and books and books. And then, just when an observer might be lured into thinking that that must be it, more books... Trefusis himself was highly dismissive of them. ‘Waste of trees,’ he had once said. ‘Stupid, ugly, clumsy, heavy things. The sooner technology comes up with a reliable alternative the better... The world is so fond of saying that books should be “treated with respect”. But when are we told that words should be treated with respect?’"
— 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, page 51:
"“I would never read a book,” he once told an interviewer. “I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that.”"
— 2022 December 6, Stephen Marche, quoting Sam Bankman-Fried, “The College Essay Is Dead”, in The Atlantic: