tome

1 of 2

noun

1
: book
especially : a large or scholarly book
2
: a volume forming part of a larger work

-tome

2 of 2

noun combining form

1
: part : segment
myotome
2
: cutting instrument
microtome

Examples of tome in a Sentence

Noun a long tome on European history picked up a thick tome on the Roman Empire at a used book store
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
Nearby was a tome on Ecuador’s judicial system and another on agronomy. Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 17 June 2024 Kleitman spent six years writing the tome, which covered virtually every study since the 1910s, including his own. Discover Magazine, 14 June 2024 His desire to control his own story may account for why his book about his years hiding under the fatwa, 2012’s Joseph Anton: A Memoir, was so artless, a tome of grievances and gripes; that was Great Man Rushdie laying claim to his own existence as intellectual property. Sanjena Sathian, Vulture, 16 Apr. 2024 In this extraordinarily ambitious tome, Mazzuca attributes the political and economic shortcomings of contemporary Latin America to the complex interactions of geography and history. Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs, 24 Aug. 2021 See all Example Sentences for tome 

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tome.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Noun

Middle French or Latin; Middle French, from Latin tomus, from Greek tomos section, roll of papyrus, tome, from temnein to cut; akin to Middle Irish tamnaid he lops, Polish ciąć to cut, and perhaps to Latin tondēre to shear

Noun combining form

Greek tomos

First Known Use

Noun

1519, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Time Traveler
The first known use of tome was in 1519

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Cite this Entry

“Tome.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tome. Accessed 2 Jul. 2024.

Kids Definition

tome

noun
: a big thick book

More from Merriam-Webster on tome

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