Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A lover of books.
  • noun A collector of books.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A lover of books. Sometimes written bibliophil.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A lover of books.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun One who loves books.
  • noun One who obsessively collects books, not necessarily due to any interest in reading them.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who loves (and usually collects) books

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

First attested in 1824. From French bibliophile, from Ancient Greek βιβλιο- (biblio-, "of or pertaining to books") + φίλος (philos, "beloved").

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Examples

  • Reading Spellwright as a bibliophile is a real treat, and the focus on language, reading, writing and understanding as a wizardly trait is something that seems somewhat new, and honestly, something long overdue in the fantasy realm.

    REVIEW: Spellwright by Blake Charlton 2010

  • A bibliophile from a young age she has always had an affinity for the genres of science fiction and fantasy.

    Kelly Melcher | Fandomania 2010

  • ROMANO: I didn't even know the word bibliophile before this.

    CNN Transcript Dec 12, 2005 2005

  • Coppins, however, hearing himself described as a bibliophile, and surmising that a bibliophile must be a person of some importance, permitted himself the luxury of remarking that he was a bibliophile -- a forty-third-degree bibliophile.

    Knowledge is Power 1916

  • In fact, what this episode demonstrates is that everyone should read a little Marx, particularly Rob Port, the self-described "bibliophile" who snapped the picture of the White House library during a tour in order to blog his cheap shot.

    Redskins Insider Podcast -- The Washington Post 2010

  • Some one has said that "to call a bibliophile a bibliomaniac is to conduct

    Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs Henry H. Harper

  • a Jewish historian and scholar — the kind of bibliophile his father Isaac was.

    Schwarz 2 - Criticism - Critical Contexts 2002

  • These may be tough times, but never have they been so filled with bargains for the bibliophile.

    2009 January | NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS 2009

  • For the bibliophile there are essays on small presses, blogs, ‘the book,’ poetry and fiction, along with the regular roundup of book reviews.

    2009 March 20 | NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS 2009

  • These may be tough times, but never have they been so filled with bargains for the bibliophile.

    Bargains for Bibliophiles 2009

  • In ‘The Book Collector’ (1841), the French writer and librarian Charles Nodier distinguished between ‘bibliophiles’, who know ‘how to select books’, and ‘bibliomaniacs’, who ‘hoard and amass them’.

    Jon Day · Diary: Hoardiculture · LRB 8 September 2022

Comments

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  • Someone who loves books

    December 22, 2010

  • "someone who abuses new books"

    December 22, 2010

  • There isn't even an agreed upon term for multi-book readers. There are bibliophiles — lovers of books. There are bibliotaphs — hoarders of books, with the intent of keeping the books out of the hands of others. There's even a word for people who like to read in bed — librocubicularist. But no succinct way of summing up the act of reading more than one book at at time.

    But that doesn't mean the internet hasn't tried to come up with a term on their own. I've seen "parallel readers" (recently suggested in a Quora forum). "Polynarritivus," from a Bookstr article last year. And "poly-reader," from a 2010 NPR piece.

    Maddy Foley, How to Read More Than One Book at a Time, According to Reddit Users Who Do It, Bustle (Sept. 6, 2018)

    September 11, 2018