bibliophage
Americannoun
Usage
What does bibliophage mean? A bibliophage is a person who reads all the time; a bookworm. Bibliophage is a very rarely used word, unlike the commonly used bookworm. But with their extensive vocabularies, bibliophages probably know it. Example: Michelle is a real bibliophage—she spends every second of her free time reading books.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of bibliophage
Explanation
If you ever snuck a book and a flashlight into bed to read under the covers past bedtime, or got scolded for reading a book when you should have been doing your chores, you might be a bibliophage: an avid reader. The word bibliophage is composed of two Greek elements: biblio, meaning "book," and the suffix -phage, "one that eats." A bibliophage is quite literally a book-eater, but the word is more frequently used metaphorically. Someone who reads books voraciously, as though they're hungry for them or need them to survive, could be described as a bibliophage, or more commonly, as a "bookworm."
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.
