helluo librorum

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English

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WOTD – 24 January 2021

Etymology

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Learned borrowing from Late Latin helluō librōrum (“glutton of books”), from Latin helluō (“glutton; squanderer”) + librōrum (“of books”).[1] Helluō is derived from helluārī + -ō (suffix forming masculine agent nouns, nicknames, and other designations);[2] helluārī is the present active infinitive of helluor (“to be a glutton, gormandize”), further etymology unknown. Librōrum is the genitive plural form of liber (“book; inner bark of a tree”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ- (“to cut off, peel”)).

The plural form is also borrowed from Late Latin helluōnēs librōrum.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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helluo librorum (plural helluones librorum)

  1. (literary, archaic) An insatiable and obsessive bookworm (“avid book reader”).
    • [1720, [attributed to Jonathan Swift], The Right of Precedence between Phisicians and Civilians Enquir’d into, Dublin: […] [J. Gowan] for John Hyde […], and Robert Owen […], →OCLC, page 16:
      [A] Writers Stomach, Appetite, and Victuals, may be judg'd from his Method, Stile, and Subject, as certainly as if you were his Meſs-fellow, and ſat at Table with him. Hence we call a Subject dry, a Writer inſipid, Notions crude, and indigeſted, a Pamphlet empty or hungry, a Stile jejune, and many ſuch like Expreſſions, plainly alluding to the Diet of an Author, and I make no manner of doubt but Tully [i.e., Cicero] grounded that ſaying of Helluo Librorum upon the ſame Obſervation.]
    • 1729, [Bernard Mandeville], “The Fourth Dialogue between Horatio and Cleomenes”, in The Fable of the Bees. Part II. […], London: […] J. Roberts […], →OCLC, page 187:
      Among the helluones librorum, the Cormorants of Books, there are wretched Reaſoners, that have canine Appetites, and no Digeſtion.
    • 1784, “NAUDE (Gabriel)”, in A New and General Biographical Dictionary; Containing an Historical and Critical Account of the Lives and Writings of the Most Eminent Persons in Every Nation; […], new edition, volume IX, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan, […], →OCLC, page 441:
      Study was his [Gabriel Naudé's] principal occupation, and he was indeed a true "Helluo librorum;" ſo that he underſtood them perfectly well.
    • 1788, Vicesimus Knox, “Evening XXIV. On Reading Trifling Uninstructive Books, Called Summer Reading.”, in Winter Evenings; or Lucubrations on Life and Letters. […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: Evert Duyckinck, […], published 1805, →OCLC, page 119:
      The Helluo Librorum, or Glutton of Books, was a character well known at the university, and mentioned by the ancients; but I believe their idea is far exceeded by many a fair subscriber at the circulating library. I have known a lady read twenty volumes in a week during two or three months successively.
    • 1810 June, “Art. II—Anecdotes of Literature, and Scarce Books, by the Rev. William Beloe, &c. London, 1810, p. 10s. 6d. Vol. IV. [book review]”, in The Critical Review: Or, Annals of Literature (Series the Third), volume XX, number II, London: […] J. Mawman, […]; and sold by J. Deighton, […]; J. Parker, and J. Cooke, […], →OCLC, page 127:
      [L]et us perform a good knife and fork as helluones librorum at those two magnificent repositories of legible or illegible rarities. Here we may feast on Editiones Principes, Uniques on vellum, books without date or place, literary frauds, colophons, catchwords, and dainties, as the ballad has it, 'past expression.'
    • 1844 November, Edgar Allan Poe, “Marginalia. I. [Text: Democratic Review, November, 1844.]”, in James A. Harrison, editor, The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia edition, volumes XVI (Marginalia–Eureka), New York, N.Y.: Thomas Y[oung] Crowell & Company, published 1902, →OCLC, page 13:
      And, even physically considered, knowledge breeds knowledge, as gold gold; for he who reads really much, finds his capacity to read increase in geometrical ratio. The helluo librorum will but glance at the page which detains the ordinary reader some minutes; and the difference in the absolute reading (its uses considered), will be in favor of the helluo, who will have winnowed the matter of which the tyro mumbled both the seeds and the chaff.
    • 1861, James W[addell] Alexander, “Remarks on the Studies and Discipline of the Preacher”, in S. D. A[lexander], editor, Thoughts on Preaching: Being Contributions to Homiletics, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner, […], →OCLC, page 181:
      There is surely some point beyond which the acquisition of other men’s thoughts must not be carried. This we say for the sake of those helluones librorum, who read forever and without stint; browsing as diligently as oxen in the green herbage of rich meads, but, unlike these, never lying down to ruminate. Life is too short, Art is too long, for a human mind to make perpetual accretion of book-learning, without halt. Sufflaminandum est.
    • 1872 February 5, William Stirling Maxwell, Address to the Students of the University of Edinburgh: Delivered on the 5th February 1872 at His Installation as Rector, Edinburgh: T[homas] & A[rchibald] Constable, Edinburgh University Press, →OCLC, page 10:
      It is now about 250 years since Robert Burton, one of the most famous of our English helluones librorum, sounded the praises of Sir Thomas Bodley, and that great Oxford library, which our own King James wished to have for his prison, if fate ever made him a prisoner, where he might pass his life chained amongst books—"his catenis illigari, cum hisce captivis concatenatis ætatem agere."
    • 1874, William Mathews, “One Book”, in The Great Conversers, and Other Essays, Chicago, Ill.: S. C. Griggs and Company, →OCLC, page 196:
      Are there not many desultory, indiscriminate, wholesale readers,—mere "helluones librorum," or book-gluttons,—who would profit by thus thoroughly digesting and assimilating one great author, instead of regaling themselves upon all the luscious, lulling fruits that tempt their literary appetites?
    • 2012, Paul Keen, “Foolish Knowledge: The Little World of Microcosmopolitan Literature”, in Literature, Commerce, and the Spectacle of Modernity, 1750–1800 (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 102:
      From the bibliomaniac's "immense and curious library" to the "modern antiquary" with his "cabinet of never-to-be-described oddities" to the impossible science of bibliography to the cacoethes scribendi to the Helluo Librorum or "great devourer of books," whether in the college or the circulating library, the compulsion to pathologize book collection, authorship and reading had itself become endemic – a kind of "itch" whose compulsive reiteration suggested an ironic echo of the very afflictions these critics set themselves against [...].
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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “helluo librorum, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2008.
  2. ^ “helluo, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2008.

Latin

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Noun

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helluō librōrum m (genitive helluōnis librōrum); third declension

  1. A helluo librorum.

Declension

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Third-declension noun with an indeclinable portion.

singular plural
nominative helluō librōrum helluōnēs librōrum
genitive helluōnis librōrum helluōnum librōrum
dative helluōnī librōrum helluōnibus librōrum
accusative helluōnem librōrum helluōnēs librōrum
ablative helluōne librōrum helluōnibus librōrum
vocative helluō librōrum helluōnēs librōrum
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