Bibliophage

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Someone who eagerly reads and consumes books with great enthusiasm
2. A person with a strong passion for reading and absorbing books
3. An individual devoted to reading extensively and enjoying books as a primary interest

Etymology: The word is a compound built from two Ancient Greek parts: "biblos," meaning "book," and "phageîn," meaning "to eat." The first element, "biblio-," shows up in many modern English words about books, from bibliography to bibliophile, while "-phage" comes from the same verb that gave us "phagocyte" and "saprophage." Literally, then, a bibliophage is a book-eater. The "book" in "biblos" itself carries a neat piece of history. The Greek word referred to the papyrus pith that was used to make writing material, and the port city of Byblos in Phoenicia was a major exporter of papyrus, which is how the name of the city and the word for book came to be linked in the Greek imagination. Papyrus rolls were so central to Greek writing that the word came to mean the writing itself. The compound "bibliophage" is a deliberately playful formation rather than an ancient term. It works on the same pattern as the more familiar "bibliophile," with the eating verb swapped in for the loving one, so that an enthusiastic reader is imagined as someone devouring books, page by page.