Bibliograph

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who specializes in compiling, describing, and cataloging books and other written works
2. Someone who researches and creates detailed lists of books, manuscripts, and publications on a particular subject
3. An expert who identifies and documents sources, editions, and bibliographic information about literary works

Etymology: "Bibliograph" is a back-formation from "bibliography," meaning that speakers worked backward from the longer word by treating its ending as if it were a root. The longer word came first, built from Greek roots: "biblion" meaning "book" and "-graphia" meaning "writing" or "description." Someone who studies or compiles lists of books is therefore, in effect, a book-writer or book-describer, which is the sense the root parts carry. The noun "bibliograph" was formed by dropping the "-y" from "bibliography" and treating "graph" as the basic element, so it is equivalent in structure to "biblio-" plus "-graph." It was also borrowed from French "bibliographe," which itself came from the same Greek elements. The word sits alongside "bibliographer," which is the more common English form for a person who compiles bibliographies.