library

English Online Dictionary. What means library‎? What does library mean?

English

Etymology

From Middle English librarie, from Anglo-Norman librarie, from Old French librairie, from Latin librarium (“bookcase, chest for books”), from librarius (“concerning books”), from liber (“the inner bark of trees; paper, parchment, book”), probably derived from a Proto-Indo-European base *leub(ʰ)- (“to strip, to peel”). Displaced native Middle English bochous, bokhus (literally “book house”), from Old English bōchūs (compare bookhouse).

Romance cognates often mean “bookshop” instead: French librairie, Italian libreria, Spanish librería, Romanian librărie and Portuguese livraria. This is a relatively recent innovation (16th century in French), which ended up displacing the earlier sense.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪbɹi/
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪbɹəɹi/
• (US)
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪˌbɹɛɹi/, /ˈlaɪbɹəɹi/
  • (nonstandard) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪˌbɛɹi/, /ˈlaɪbəɹi/
• Rhymes: -aɪbɹi, -aɪbɹəɹi, -aɪbɛɹi

The non-RP UK pronunciation /ˈlaɪbɹi/ (whence the eye dialect spelling libry) exhibits haplology. It generally isn't stigmatized unlike the nonstandard American pronunciation, respelled as libary, which is often associated with illiteracy, an association that may be exacerbated by the word's definition as a place to engage in literacy.

Noun

library (plural libraries)

2. An institution which holds books and/or other forms of media for use by the public or qualified people often lending them out, as well as providing various other services for its users.

   Synonym: (nonstandard) bookhouse

   Coordinate terms: bookshop, bookstore
3. (by extension) Any institution that lends out its goods for use by the public or a community.
4. A collection of books or other forms of stored information.
5. An equivalent collection of analogous information in a non-printed form, e.g. record library.
6. A room dedicated to storing books.
7. (programming) A collection of software routines that provide functionality to be incorporated into or used by a computer program.

   Coordinate term: framework
8. (genetics) A collection of DNA material from a single organism or relative to a single disease.
9. (card games, Magic: The Gathering) The deck or draw pile.

Synonyms

• bibliotheca (obsolete)
• bibliotheke (obsolete)

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Hindustani:
  • Hindi: लाइब्रेरी f (lāibrerī)
  • Urdu: لائبریری f (lāibrerī)
• → Iban: librari
• → Japanese: ライブラリー (raiburarī)
• → Korean: 라이브러리 (raibeureori)
• → Yoruba: láíbìrì

Translations

Further reading

• library on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• library (computing) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• library (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• biraryl