Word of the Day

: January 6, 2025

tome

noun TOHM

What It Means

Tome is a formal word for a book, and especially a very large, thick, often scholarly book.

// We picked up a tome on the Ghana Empire for our history project.

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tome in Context

“‘The way that we’ve approached publishing at Climax is almost having these two very separate worlds that live perfectly together,’ [Isabella] Burley says of her business’s work in both the archival and contemporary worlds. Climax returned with its second title earlier this month, a 550-page tome surveying ten years of images produced between 2014 and 2024 by artist Martine Syms, whose work examines themes of identity, gender and Black culture.” — Sarah Kearns, Hypebeast Magazine, 15 Nov. 2024

Did You Know?

When is a book not a book? When it’s a tome—tome being a word that has always suggested something less or more than the word book. When tome was first used in English, it referred to a book that was part of a larger, multi-volume work, which makes sense given that it comes from tomos, a Greek noun meaning “section” or “roll of papyrus” that comes in turn from the verb temnein, meaning “to cut” (in ancient times, long scrolls of papyrus were often divided into sections). While tome retains this meaning today, it usually refers instead to a book that is larger and more scholarly than average, as evidenced by some of the most common adjectives that precede it, including weighty, lengthy, massive, heavy, hefty, and academic.