Book

(bŏŏk), n. [A-S. bōc, Icel. bōk, Sw. bok, Dan. bog, O. Sax. buok, D. boek, Goth. bôka, O. H. Ger. puoh, M. H. Ger. buoch, N. H. Ger. buch, from A-S. bōce, beōce, beech, Ger. buche, because the ancient Saxons and Germans in general wrote on beechen boards. (Cf. BEECH.)]

1Sense 1. A collection of sheets of paper, or similar material, blank, written, or printed, bound together.

☞ When blank, it is commonly called a blank-book, of whatever size. When printed, the term signifies a volume of some size, in contradistinction to a pamphlet.

2Sense 2. A literary composition, written or printed; a treatise.

Books are a sort of dumb teachers. Watts.

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. Milton.

3Sense 3. A part or subdivision of a treatise or literary work; as, the fifth book of Euclid; the tenth book of Paradise Lost.

4Sense 4. (Mer.) A volume or collection of sheets in which accounts are kept; a register of debts and credits, receipts and expenditures, &c.

In the books of, in kind remembrance or favor with.

I was so much in his books, that at his decease he left me his lamp. Addison.

Without book. (a.) By memory; without reading; without notes; as, a sermon was delivered without book. (b.) Without authority; as, a man asserts without book.

v. t. [imp. & p. p. BOOKED (bŏŏkt); p. pr. & vb. n. BOOKING.] To enter, write, or register in a book. “Let it be booked with the rest of this day's deeds.” Shak.