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Library Etymology - Wiktionary

A library is an institution that holds books and other media for public use, often lending items out and providing services to users. It comes from the Latin "librarium" meaning bookcase or chest for books. Libraries originally meant bookshops but now refer to institutions. They contain collections of books, records, software routines, or DNA material depending on the context.

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138 views

Library Etymology - Wiktionary

A library is an institution that holds books and other media for public use, often lending items out and providing services to users. It comes from the Latin "librarium" meaning bookcase or chest for books. Libraries originally meant bookshops but now refer to institutions. They contain collections of books, records, software routines, or DNA material depending on the context.

Uploaded by

Samuel D. Adeyemi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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library

English

Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris

Etymology

Middle English librarie, from Anglo-Norman librarie, from Old French librairie, from Latin librarium
(“bookcase, chest for books”), from librarius (“concerning books”), from liber (“the inner bark of
trees; paper, parchment, book”), probably derived from a Proto-Indo-European base *leub(ʰ)- (“to
strip, to peel”). Displaced native Middle English bochus, bochous (literally “book house”), from
Old English bōchūs.

Romance cognates often mean “bookshop” instead: French librairie, Italian libreria, Spanish
librería, Romanian librărie and Portuguese livraria. This is a relatively recent innovation (16th
century in French), which ended up displacing the earlier sense.
Pronunciation
(UK) IPA(key): /ˈlaɪbɹi/
(Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈlaɪbɹəɹi/

(US)
(General American) IPA(key): /ˈlaɪˌbɹɛɹi/, /ˈlaɪbɹəɹi/

(non-standard) IPA(key): /ˈlaɪˌbɛɹi/

Audio (US) 0:00 / 0:00 (file)

The non-RP UK pronunciation /ˈlaɪbɹi/ (whence the eye dialect spelling libry) exhibits haplology.

Noun

library (plural libraries)

1. An institution which holds books and/or other forms of media for use by the public or
qualified people often lending them out, as well as providing various other services for its
users.
Synonym: (nonstandard) bookhouse
Coordinate terms: bookshop, bookstore

2. (by extension) Any institution that lends out its goods for use by the public or a community.

3. A collection of books or other forms of stored information.


quotations ▼

4. An equivalent collection of analogous information in a non-printed form, e.g. record library.

5. A room dedicated to storing books.

6. (programming) A collection of software routines that provide functionality to be


incorporated into or used by a computer program.
quotations ▼
Coordinate term: framework

7. (genetics) A collection of DNA material from a single organism or relative to a single


disease.

8. (card games) The deck or draw pile.


quotations ▼
Synonyms
bibliotheca (obsolete)

bibliotheke (obsolete)

Derived terms
Borgesian library

interlibrary

librarial

library assistant

library catalog

library hand

public library

record library

school library
   show more ▼ 

Descendants
→ Hindustani:
Hindi: लाइब्रेरी f (lāibrerī)

Urdu: ‫الئبریری‬‎ f (lāibrerī)

→ Japanese: ライブラリー (raiburarī)


→ Yoruba: láíbìrì

Translations

institution which holds books, etc. show ▼

collection of books show ▼

collection of records show ▼

collection of subprograms show ▼

collection of DNA material show ▼

deck or draw pile show ▼

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation
tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See
instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked show ▼

Further reading
library on Wikipedia.

library (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.

Anagrams
biraryl

Retrieved from
"https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?
title=library&oldid=64265357"


Last edited 6 days ago by 94.252.95.149

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otherwise noted.

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