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English
Noun
book-ghoul (plural book-ghouls)
- (rare) Person who vandalizes books by ripping their pages out and stealing them.
1881, Andrew Lang, The Library, page 56:There is a thievish nature more hateful than the biblioklept. The Book-Ghoul is he who combines the larceny of the biblioklept with the abominable wickedness of breaking up and mutilating the volumes from which he steals.
1959 January 25, Elizabeth Lawrence, edited by Bill Neal, Through the Garden Gate, →ISBN, page 5:I bought the text of the volume on bulbs for a dollar. It had been priced at a hundred dollars before some book-ghoul tore out the fifty-eight plates to use as decorations for lamp shades and scrap baskets.
1973 August, Julia Fields, “The Plot To Bring Back Dunking”, in Black World, volume 22, number 10, page 70:And the front doors were locked. Locked for what? Burglary? Ol' book-ghoul come to retrieve his pictures from E-boney?