People who love reading tend to love single words as well. And there is always an even bigger thrill when you find a word in another language that not only sounds good, but describes something so well, that you’d want to adopt it into your own language.
Here are some of the best words to do with reading and books from around the world.
Abibliophobia, from Greek. A humorous word made up of the Greek prefix a, for ‘not’, bibli (book), and phobos for ‘fear’. that describes the fear of running out of books, or things to read. Presumably the precursor of Tsundoku (see below).
Bibliomania, from the Greek biblio for book, combined with mania, meaning madness or frenzy. Bibliomania comes in many guises, from not being able to walk past a bookstore without going in, to having a nearly insurmountable stack of to-be-read books on your bedside table, to never leaving the house without a book, just in case of some slack time somewhere en route. A severe case may result in the following term:
Bibliotaph, from Greek. Combining biblio with taphe, from taphos meaning ‘tomb’, a book-tomb is something someone who hoards books creates. The book-tomb created by the late German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, was made up of an impressive 300,000 books.
Bookarazzi, a slang term found in the English Urban Dictionary, meaning someone who posts about their reads on social media.
Book-bosomed, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a word coined by Scottish poet, writer, and historian Sir Walter Scott, which is said to mean “carrying a book at all times.” If not necessarily pressed against one’s bosom.
Book-hangover, slang term.A book-hangover is an acknowledged term describing that sad feeling after finishing a book you enjoyed and disappeared into for a while.Feeling lost without the characters and the plot, the thought of starting the next book is unbearable. Maybe the cure is to go out schmökern?
Bouquiniste, from French. Who doesn’t love the bouquinistes along the Seine in Paris? Simply meaning booksellers, usually of second-hand books, it sounds so much better in French.
Leseratte, German. Literally, a reading rat, but simply meaning someone who reads a lot. The English equivalent would be a book worm, a book horse in Danish, an ink-drinker in French, or even a chapter maggot in Finnish.
Librocubicularist, from Latin. Someone who reads in bed, combining the Latin for book, liber with cubiculum, meaning bedroom, which itself is from cubare, to lie or to recline.
Logophile, from Greek. Made up of logo, word, and phile, meaning a lover of or enthusiast of, this is you: a lover of words.
Omnilegent, from Latin. Made up of omnis meaning ‘all’ and legere meaning ‘to read’, someone omnilegent is that never-to-be-found person who has read everything.
Schmökern, German. A word meaning not only leisurely enjoying reading a book, preferably in a comfortable position, such as lounging on a couch, but also meandering through a bookstore or a library, picking up random books, browsing their blurbs, putting them back, and maybe eventually having a stack of future reads.
Scripturient, from Latin. A derivative from scribere, to write, being scripturient means to have a strong urge to write. And were would a Leseratte be without an author who feels scripturient?
Shelfie, slang. Remember Zoom meetings during the Covid pandemic, and everybody sat in front of their bookshelf? Showing off that one reads was de rigeur at the time, so much so that singer Adele went out to buy a shelf-load of books, random books, to create a shelfie that looked as if she actually occasionally read.
Tsundoku, Japanese. A term for the practise of buying more books than you can read in one go and piling them up in a to-read stack. A common ailment for book worms.
