book
/bʊk/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: 5.43 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A collection of sheets of paper bound together to hinge at one edge, containing printed or written material, pictures, etc.
noun
A 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.
noun
A bookmaker (a person who takes bets on sporting events and similar); bookie; turf accountant.
Informal
noun
A convenient collection, in a form resembling a book, of small paper items for individual use.
noun
Records of the accounts of a business.
Example Sentences
- "Knowing I lou'd my bookes, he furniſhd me / From mine owne Library, with volumes, that / I prize aboue my Dukedome."
- "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."
- "I can be anything. Take a look! It's in a book: A 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?’"
- "She opened the book to page 37 and began to read aloud."
- "He was frustrated because he couldn't find anything about dinosaurs in the book."
Etymology
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /bʊk/
- British English: /bʊk/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in People.