bookseller

Etymology

It is formed from English book + seller.^[2][3][4] Johnson (1755) derived it from book and sell.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who sells books: about 1475, in the Catholicon Anglicum.^[2] The 1989 edition of the OED had dated the word to 1527,^[6] and Etymonline gives the 1520s^[3] and Dictionary.com 1520–30;^[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged places its first use in the 15th century.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined a bookseller as one whose profession was selling books, quoting Izaak Walton's Life of Bishop Sanderson.^[5] The revised OED extends it to an establishment that sells books,^[2] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged singles out the owner of a bookshop.^[7] The 1989 edition of the OED recorded the derivatives booksellerish and booksellerism from 1778.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1475 – a person who sells books.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1520s.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person whose business is selling books, especially the owner of a bookshop or bookstore: She worked for a secondhand bookseller in Oxford.^{[7][8][9][10]}
2. A business that sells books.^[2][1]

Word family

• bookselling

Related words

• book
• sell
• seller
• bookstore

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
6. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
10. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster