chapbook
Americannoun
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a small book or pamphlet of popular tales, ballads, etc., formerly hawked about by chapmen.
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a small book or pamphlet, often of poetry.
noun
Etymology
Origin of chapbook
Explanation
An inexpensive literary booklet or pamphlet, often bound with hand stitching, is called a chapbook. If you want to share your poetry, you should make some chapbooks and pass them out to your friends. Chapbook was coined in the early 1800s from chap, short for chapman, a peddler who sold wares including chapbooks. Before the mid-19th century, they were wildly popular, especially with people who couldn't afford books. Religious tracts, folk tales, children's stories, almanacs, and many other types of literature were published as chapbooks. Poetry chapbooks, printed on stitched or folded sheets of paper, saw a resurgence in the 20th century that continues today.
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.
His crushing fatalism makes him an unlikely candidate to select patriotic verse for the festival’s poetry chapbook or to furnish interiors for its house-and-home exhibition.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
She started a Substack, self-published a paperback booklet known as a chapbook and began her own reading series called Electric Blue, a hybrid of her party life and creative practice.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 16, 2023
Other literary magazines to recently end include Astra and beloved and well-respected poetry journal and chapbook publisher Glass Poetry Press.
From Salon ● Feb. 25, 2023
She produced a friend’s chapbook on another friend’s letterpress, and was hooked.
From New York Times ● Aug. 6, 2022
The same material was used also in a Dutch chapbook, Jan wt den vergiere, of which a copy printed at Amsterdam is preserved at Göttingen.
From The Grateful Dead The History of a Folk Story by Gordon Hall Gerould
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.
