Meanings
plural bookplates
- A printed piece of paper pasted on one of the pages of a book, most often on the inside front cover, showing ownership and thus deterring theft.
By the bed there was a bookcase with old French novels, left-behind Frederick Forsyths, odd leather-bound volumes of history and memoirs with the coroneted Kessler bookplate.
2004, Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty […], London: Picador, →ISBN
present singular third person bookplates · participle present bookplating · participle past bookplated · past bookplated
- transitiveTo affix a bookplate to (a book).
Synonyms & antonyms
nouna label identifying the owner of a book in which it is pasted
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
Translations
Bulgarian екслибрис
- екслибрис (ekslibris)piece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
Chinese Mandarin 藏書票 /藏书票
- 藏書票 /藏书票 (cángshūpiào)piece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
Esperanto ekslibriso
- ekslibrisopiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
Estonian eksliibris
- eksliibrispiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
Finnish exlibris
- exlibrispiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
French ex-libris, ex libris
- ex-librispiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
- ex librispiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
German Exlibris
- Exlibrispiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
Italian ex libris
- ex librispiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
Lithuanian ekslibrisas
- ekslibrisaspiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
Polish ekslibris
- ekslibrispiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
Portuguese ex-libris
- ex-librispiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
Spanish ex libris
- ex librispiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
Swedish exlibris, exlibrismärke
- exlibrispiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
- exlibrismärkepiece of paper pasted on a book to show ownership
Cite this entry
bookplate. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bookplate
“bookplate.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bookplate. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bookplate,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bookplate.
Source: bookplate on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.