The story
- Ancient Greek · derived fromβῐβλῐοπώλης“bookseller”
- Latin · derived frombibliopōla“bookseller”
- English todaybibliopoly
From bibliopole (“bookseller”) + -poly (suffix denoting sellers in a market). Bibliopole is derived from Latin bibliopōla (“bookseller”), from Ancient Greek βῐβλῐοπώλης (bĭblĭopṓlēs, “bookseller”), from βῐβλῐ́ον (bĭblĭ́on), βυβλίον (bublíon, “book; letter; tablet; strip of papyrus; writing”) (from βῠ́βλος (bŭ́blos, “papyrus plant; writings on papyrus; book”), from Βῠ́βλος (Bŭ́blos, “city of Byblos”), a source of papyrus) + -πώλης (-pṓlēs, suffix denoting a retailer, shop owner, etc.) (from πωλέω (pōléō, “to sell”)). The English word is also analysable as biblio- (prefix meaning ‘book’) + -poly.
Words from the same roots
Latinbibliopōla all →
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.