tome

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 7, 2012 is: tome • \TOHM\  • noun 1 : a volume forming part of a larger work 2 : book; especially : a large or scholarly book Examples: 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. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.