bibliomania
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of bibliomania
1725–35; biblio- + -mania; replacing earlier bibliomanie < French
Explanation
Bibliomania is an extreme passion for books. If you spend all of your paychecks buying first edition novels, you can say you suffer from bibliomania. The word bibliomania, inspired by the French bibliomanie, combines the Greek roots biblio, "book," and mania, "madness" or "frenzy." If you love books as physical objects, and you collect them furiously or compulsively, that's bibliomania. Merely loving to read might instead be called bibliophilia, with philia meaning "fondness" or "love." If your bibliomania interferes with your life, it might even be categorized as a hording disorder.
Vocabulary lists containing bibliomania
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Mattis, who prefers the nickname “Warrior Monk” to “Mad Dog,” repeatedly leans on his bibliomania throughout his 300-page book.
From Washington Post • Sep. 4, 2019
If we can extend the image of “nightstand” to include the floor and the chest of drawers across the room, we might be approaching my unfortunate bibliomania and occasional trashophilia.
From New York Times • Mar. 8, 2018
I bought with a hunger that I recognise, looking back, was a kind of neediness: well, bibliomania is a known condition.
From The Guardian • Jun. 29, 2012
And there is every indication that Guernsey will devolve from here into a rote exercise in Anglophilia and cozy, self-congratulatory bibliomania.
From Time Magazine Archive
It is pleasant, however, to trace these workings of bibliomania in the monasteries; and it is a surprise quite agreeable and delicious in itself to meet with instances like the present.
From Bibliomania in the Middle Ages by Merryweather, Frederick Somner
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
