Libraries

How to spell libraries

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce libraries

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does libraries mean?

1. nounBuildings or rooms holding collections of books and other materials for reading, reference, or borrowing.

Libraries in a sentence

• Many public libraries now offer free internet access alongside their book collections.

• The city closed two libraries last year to save money.

Where does libraries come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the plural of 'library', which comes from the Latin librarium, meaning 'a place to keep books', and behind that lies liber, the Latin word for 'book'. Originally liber referred to the inner bark of a tree, the layer on which early writing was scratched before paper and parchment took over, so the word for 'book' literally began as the word for 'bark'. The form reached English in the late 1300s by way of Old French librairie, which confusingly meant a bookseller's shop rather than a public reading room. The same liber root still shows up in the French librairie (bookshop) and the Spanish libro, which is why English speakers sometimes trip over the spelling, expecting the more familiar pattern. The trap in 'libraries' is the unstressed middle: writers often drop the second 'r' and the 'a', flattening the careful libr-ar-ies into 'libries'.

How the word is built

• libr- (from liber: book)
• -ary (place for)
• -ies (plural of -y)