Etymologically
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album

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 15 October 2026 at 19:32. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈæl.bəm/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin album (“white tablet; list of names”), through German use,[2][3] the noun use of the neuter of albus (“white”).[4][5][6] In Roman times an album was a board painted white on which public notices, such as the praetor's edicts and lists of senators, were written in black.[4][7] German scholars revived the word in the 16th century for the New Latin album amicorum (“album of friends”), a book in which they collected the signatures of colleagues.[4][3] Latin albus is also the source of alb and albino.[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A book of friends' signatures, verses and drawings: 1651,[2][8] or 1612 according to Merriam-Webster.[9] Etymonline dates the form albo to the 1650s.[4]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) still defined an album as a book in which foreigners collected the autographs of famous people.[4] A visitors' book at a public place is from 1775,[8] and a book for photographs or stamps from 1859.[8][4] In the 1940s the word was applied to a set of recorded pieces of music,[7] and to a long-playing record by 1951[4] or 1957.[8]

Timeline

  • 1651 – a book of autographs and verses.[2][8]
  • 1755 – Johnson's definition, an autograph book.[4]
  • 1775 – a visitors' book.[8]
  • 1859 – a photograph album.[8][4]
  • 1940s – a set of recordings.[7]
  • 1951 – a long-playing record.[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A book with blank pages for keeping photographs, stamps or autographs.
  2. A collection of recordings released together, originally on a long-playing record.
  3. (Roman history) A white tablet on which public notices were written.

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  6. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster