as in literary
suggestive of the vocabulary used in books
"fealty" is a bookish synonym for "loyalty"
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of bookish
An entire bar shut down, if momentarily, because of our bookish tread.
—
Gary Shteyngart, The New Yorker, 31 Jan. 2023
Sandwiched between two popes more skilled in reaching out to non-Catholics, Benedict was seen as a bookish purist.
—Stefano Pitrelli, Washington Post, 31 Dec. 2022
Sandwiched between two popes more skilled in outreach to non-Catholics, Benedict was seen as a bookish purist.
—Chico Harlan, Stefano Pitrelli, Marisa Iati, Anchorage Daily News, 31 Dec. 2022
BookTok, the bookish corner of TikTok, invites book lovers to showcase their literary passions.
—Chelsea G. Summers, Vulture, 22 Nov. 2022
See All Example Sentences for bookish
Gary Shteyngart, The New Yorker, 31 Jan. 2023
Sandwiched between two popes more skilled in reaching out to non-Catholics, Benedict was seen as a bookish purist.
—Stefano Pitrelli, Washington Post, 31 Dec. 2022
Sandwiched between two popes more skilled in outreach to non-Catholics, Benedict was seen as a bookish purist.
—Chico Harlan, Stefano Pitrelli, Marisa Iati, Anchorage Daily News, 31 Dec. 2022
BookTok, the bookish corner of TikTok, invites book lovers to showcase their literary passions.
—Chelsea G. Summers, Vulture, 22 Nov. 2022
See All Example Sentences for bookish
Recent Examples of Synonyms for bookish
literary
Adjective
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Schiffman previously served as a partner at Intellectual Property Group and as head of literary property divisions at both Gersh and William Morris Endeavor before joining Echo Lake.—
Naman Ramachandran,
Variety,
27 June 2025
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Developers feed their chatbot models on a torrent of material, much of it scraped from the web — everything from distinguished literary works to random babbling — as well as collections holding millions of books, articles, scientific papers and the like, some of it copyrighted.—
Michael Hiltzik,
Los Angeles Times,
27 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Bookish.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bookish. Accessed 6 Jul. 2025.
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