tome

(tōm)

1. One of the books in a work of several volumes.

2. A book, especially a large or scholarly one.

[French, from Latin tomus, from Greek tomos, a cutting, section, from temnein, to cut; see tem- in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

tome

(təʊm)

1. (Printing, Lithography & Bookbinding) a large weighty book

2. (Printing, Lithography & Bookbinding) one of the several volumes of a work

[C16: from French, from Latin tomus section of larger work, from Greek tomos a slice, from temnein to cut; related to Latin tondēre to shear]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

tome

(toʊm)

n.

1. a book, esp. a very heavy, large, or learned book.

2. a volume forming a part of a larger work.

[1510–20; < French < Latin tomus < Greek tómos slice, piece, papyrus roll, derivative of témnein to cut]

-tome

a combining form with the meanings “cutting instrument” (microtome), “segment, somite” (dermatome).

[< Greek -tomos -cutting]

tome

- Comes from Greek tomos, "roll of papyrus," and was originally a word for one volume of a larger work.

tome

noun book, work, title, volume, opus, publication a hefty legal tome

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

tome

noun

A printed and bound work:

book, volume.

Translations

Wälzer

nidosopusosa

tomo

том

tome

[təʊm] N (hum) → mamotreto m
a weighty tome → un pesado mamotreto

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

tome

[ˈtəʊm] n → gros m livre

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

tome

n → dickes Buch, Wälzer m (inf)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

tome

[təʊm] n → tomo (hum) → librone m

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

The man's face seemed tome to be refined and even pleasant.

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It is a heavy tome of over seven hundred pages, painfully careful and accurate, and startlingly original.

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Here, on the cushion, lay a folio tome, probably of the Chronicles of England, or other such substantial literature; even as, in our own days, we scatter gilded volumes on the centre table, to be turned over by the casual guest.

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Gilbert laid down the ponderous medical tome over which he had been poring until the increasing dusk of the March evening made him desist.

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Half an hour later I was seated in the newspaper office with a huge tome in front of me, which had been opened at the article "Weissmann versus Darwin," with the sub heading, "Spirited Protest at Vienna.

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I snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and spread open the injured tome on my knee.

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So, I made a rush towards the bookcase nearest me, and, without stopping further to consider matters, seized hold of the first dusty tome upon which my hands chanced to alight, and, reddening and growing pale by turns, and trembling with fear and excitement, clasped the stolen book to my breast with the intention of reading it by candle light while my mother lay asleep at night.

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Tomes, who has specially studied this family, that many of the same species have enormous ranges, and are found on continents and on far distant islands.

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Consider the whole machinery of the civil law made necessary by these processes; the libraries of ponderous tomes, the courts and juries to interpret them, the lawyers studying to circumvent them, the pettifogging and chicanery, the hatreds and lies!

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In many dark old tomes she met with chapters full of romance and poetry.

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There was daylight enough for me in the drawing-room below; and there I would sit immersed in criminous tomes weakly fascinated until I shivered and shook in my stocking soles.

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Among other volumes of verse on the top shelf of the bookcase, of which I used to look at the outside without penetrating deeply within, were Pope's translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Dryden's Virgil, pretty little tomes in tree-calf, published by James Crissy in Philadelphia, and illustrated with small copper-plates, which somehow seemed to put the matter hopelessly beyond me.

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