Word of the Day

: January 7, 2012

tome

noun TOHM

What It Means

1 : a volume forming part of a larger work

2 : book; especially : a large or scholarly book

tome in Context

It took me more than a month to finish reading that 800-page tome on European history.

"Priced at $1,000, the limited-edition tome brings together Norman Mailer's 1973 biography of Monroe with Bert Stern's now-legendary photos." -- From a review by Nicki Gostin on the Huffington Post, December 7, 2011

Did You Know?

"Tome" comes from Latin "tomus," which comes from Greek "tomos," meaning "section" or "roll of papyrus." "Tomos" comes from the Greek verb "temnein," which means "to cut." In ancient times, some of the longest scrolls of papyrus occasionally were divided into sections. When it was first used in English in the 16th century, "tome" was a book that was a part of a multi-volume work. Now a tome is most often simply a large and often ponderous book.