bibliopoly

English

WOTD – 28 September 2022

Etymology

A bookshop in Thessaloniki, Greece. Bibliopoly is the trade of bookselling.

From bibliopole (“bookseller”) +‎ -poly (suffix denoting sellers in a market).[1][2] Bibliopole is derived from Latin bibliopōla (“bookseller”), from Ancient Greek βῐβλῐοπώλης (bibliopṓlēs, “bookseller”), from βῐβλῐ́ον (biblíon), βυβλίον (bublíon, “book; letter; tablet; strip of papyrus; writing”) (from βῠ́βλος (búblos, “papyrus plant; writings on papyrus; book”), from Βῠ́βλος (Búblos, “city of Byblos”), a source of papyrus) + -πώλης (-pṓlēs, suffix denoting a retailer, shop owner, etc.) (from πωλέω (pōléō, “to sell”)). The English word is also analysable as biblio- (prefix meaning ‘book’) +‎ -poly.

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌbɪbliˈɒpəli/
Audio (Southern England) (file)
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˌbɪbliˈɑpəli/
Hyphenation: bib‧li‧o‧po‧ly

Noun

bibliopoly (uncountable)

(literary) Bookselling.
Synonyms: (rare) bibliopolism, (archaic) bibliopolery
- 1776, Voltaire; [anonymous], transl., “[The Appendix to the Fourth Volume of the London Review.] Lettre de M. de Voltaire à l’Academie Francoise, &c. Or, A Letter from M. de Voltaire, to the French Academy, Read at Their Last Public Assembly on the Festival of St. Louis, August 23, 1776.”, in W[illiam] Kenrick, editor, The London Review of English and Foreign Literature, volume IV, London: […] T[homas] Evans, […], OCLC 1104923839, page 511:
  If the ſecretary to the French bibliopoly tranſlates the tragedy of Henry V. faithfully, as he has promiſed, he vvill open a fine ſchool of delicacy and decorum for the inſtruction of our courtiers.
- 1821, George Lamb, “Notes to Vol. I”, in Caius Valerius Catullus; George Lamb, transl., The Poems of Caius Valerius Catullus Translated. […], volume I, London: John Murray, […], OCLC 1015510579, page 145:
  Instead of attempting to translate the terms of Roman bibliopoly, many of which are ill-understood, and all of which would sound harsh in English poetry, I have, in common I believe with all translators, described his writings as in a modern book.
- 1828 January 1, M., “A First Lesson in Reading”, in The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, volume XXII, part I, number LXXXV, London: Henry Colburn […], OCLC 7489271, page 360:
  Nature, however, has been kind, and bibliopoly thrives.
- 1831 August, O. Y., “An Apology for a Preface to Our Fourth Volume”, in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, volume IV, number XIX, London: James Fraser […], OCLC 73210235, footnote *, page 4:
  We have heard similar complaints (at least as far as the book trade is concerned) from the highest quarters of bibliopoly.
- 1836, “Art. IX.—Poliarnya Zvœsdà; Severnie Tzvœti; Nevsky Almanakh, &c. &c. The Polar Star; Northern Flowers; Neva Almanack, &c. &c.—Russian Annuals and Literary Pocket Books.”, in The Foreign Quarterly Review, volume XVI, number XXXII, London: Adolphus Richter & Co. (late Treuttel and Wurtz, and Richter,) […]); Black and Armstrong, […], OCLC 1015477919, page 446:
  Great as was the success—and its sale was almost unprecedented in the annals of Russian bibliopoly, the career of the "Polar Star" was exceedingly brief, as it did not extend beyond its third volume.
- 1853 December 5, Bliss Perry, quoting James Russell Lowell, “The Editor who was Never the Editor”, in The Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics, volume C, number 5, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], published November 1907, OCLC 932565813, page 664, column 2:
  There are as good fish in that buccaneering sea of Bibliopoly as ever were caught, and if one of them have broken away from your harpoon, I hope the net may prove a downright Kraken on whom, if needful, you can pitch your tent and live.
- 1882, James Anthony Froude, “A.D. 1832. Æt. 37.”, in Thomas Carlyle: A History of the First Forty Years of His Life, 1795–1835 […], volume II, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., OCLC 1131171474, page 310:
  Bibliopoly, bibliopoesy, in all their branches, are sick, sick, hastening to death and new genesis.
- 1971, Jules Paul Seigel, “Ralph Waldo Emerson, an Unsigned Review, Dial: July 1843, iv, 96–102”, in Jules Paul Seigel, editor, Thomas Carlyle (The Critical Heritage), Abingdon, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, published 1995, →ISBN, page 219:
  Although [Ralph Waldo] Emerson initiated the correspondence, [Thomas] Carlyle was to gain much from this friendship in the next decade as Emerson was to perform many services for the Scotsman, […] performing much bibliopoly for Carlyle in the next few years.
- 1986, Jaan Puhvel; David Weeks, “Editors’ Preface”, in Georges Dumézil; Jaan Puhvel and David Weeks, editors, The Plight of a Sorcerer, Berkeley; Los Angeles, Calif.; London: University of California Press, →ISBN, page vii:
  The three parts were sufficiently self-contained to warrant consideration as individual monographs, and such has been the shape of their transposition to Anglo-American vernacular and bibliopoly.
- 2008, Benjamin Bennett, “Reading, and the Theory of Reading”, in The Dark Side of Literacy: Literature and Learning Not to Read, New York, N.Y.: Fordham University Press, →ISBN, page 28:
  The evolution of political and social structures and concomitant systems of education certainly plays a role here, as do the technology of printing, the growth of lending libraries and other book-circulating associations, the serialization of otherwise unwieldy and unaffordable books, and the gradual advent of indiscriminate mass bibliopoly, all of which produce a situation where in principle anyone, for a reasonable sum of money, can become a reader of anything.

Related terms

bibliopolar (nonce word, obsolete)
bibliopole
bibliopolery (archaic)
bibliopolic
bibliopolical
bibliopolically
bibliopolism (rare)
bibliopolist
bibliopolistic

Translations

bookselling — see bookselling

References

“bibliopoly, n.” under “bibliopole, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2018.
“bibliopoly, n.”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, reproduced from Stuart Berg Flexner, editor in chief, Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1993, →ISBN.