Bookmobile

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A large van or truck fitted out with shelves of books so that it can carry a library service to remote or underserved neighborhoods
2. A mobile library housed in a motor vehicle that drives to different stops where residents can borrow and return reading materials
3. A traveling library built into a bus or truck, visiting towns and districts on a set route so people can check out books nearby

Etymology: The most striking thing about "bookmobile" is that its second half, "-mobile," was not born as a word of its own. It was clipped from "automobile," which itself was built in English from the Greek "autos," meaning "self," and the Latin "mobilis," meaning "movable." So a bookmobile is, in effect, a book that moves under its own power, a self-propelled library. The first half is far older. "Book" descends from Old English "bōc," a word that goes back through Proto-Germanic, and it has no link to the beech tree in the way some readers assume. The compound simply joins a very old noun to a modern combining element, the sort of construction English produces readily once a suffix has become productive. The "-mobile" element is what makes the word feel modern. Once "automobile" was familiar, speakers could detach "-mobile" and attach it to other nouns to mean "a vehicle carrying the thing named," producing terms like "bookmobile" for a library on wheels.

Synonyms: mobile library