Library definition
A public or private institution in charge of the care and circulation of such a collection.
noun
A set or series of books issued in a single format by a publishing house.
noun
An institution which holds books and/or other forms of stored information for use by the public or qualified people. It is usual, but not a defining feature of a library, for it to be housed in rooms of a building, to lend items of its collection to members either with or without payment, and to provide various other services for its community of users.
noun
A collection of such materials, especially when systematically arranged.
noun
Any collection of things that is organized for a particular purpose.
A software library.
noun
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An equivalent collection of analogous information in a non-printed form, e.g. record library.
noun
An institution or foundation maintaining such a collection.
noun
The definition of a library is a collection of books, or is a room or a building where collections of books are stored.
An example of a library is 10 mystery novels that you own.
An example of a library is a room in your house with bookshelves and lots of books.
An example of a library is a building you visit in your town where you are allowed to get a card to check out books.
noun
(computer science) A collection of software subprograms that provides functionality, to be incorporated into or used by a computer program.
noun
A collection of books, periodicals, musical scores, music and film recordings, etc., esp. a large, systematically arranged collection for reading or reference.
noun
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A set of things similar to a library in appearance, function, or organization, especially:
- A series of books issued by a publisher.
- A collection of standard routines used in computer programs, usually stored as an executable file.
- A collection of cloned DNA sequences whose location and identity can be established by mapping the genome of a particular organism.
- A collection of proteins generated from the collected DNA sequences that express them, used for tracking metabolic functions of proteins in diseases such as cancer, for the synthesis of new drugs, and for other proteomics research.
noun
A room or building where such a collection is kept.
noun
A collection of books or other forms of stored information.
noun
A room in a private home for such a collection.
noun
A place in which reading materials, such as books, periodicals, and newspapers, and often other materials such as musical and video recordings, are kept for use or lending.
noun
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Other Word Forms
Noun
Singular:
library
Plural:
librariesOrigin of library
- Middle English librarie from Anglo-Norman from Latin librārium bookcase from neuter of librārius of books from liber libr- inner bark of trees used as a writing material, book
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- Middle English librarie, from Anglo-Norman librarie, from Old French librairie, from Latin librarium (“bookcase, chest for books"), from librarius (“concerning books"), from liber (“the inner bark of trees, paper, parchment, book"), probably derived from a Proto-Indo-European base *leub(h) (“to strip, to peel"). Displaced native Middle English bochus, bochous (“library, bookhouse") (from Old English bōchÅ«s (“library, bookhouse")).
From Wiktionary