bookish

English

WOTD – 16 December 2009

book +‎ -ish

bookish (comparative more bookish, superlative most bookish)

Fond of reading or studying, especially said of someone lacking social skills as a result.
- 1783, Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, page 16:
  From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. […] This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession.
- 2020 September 3, Kim Willsher, “French reporter who joined police exposes racism and violence”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:
  A Google search reveals Gendrot has no great internet or social media footprint, but in any case, he says, the police recruiters did not delve into his background. He did change his round spectacles to look less “bookish”.
Characterized by a method of expression generally found in books.
- 1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 1, in On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC, part 1:
  Besides, all my New York friends were in the negative, nightmare position of putting down society and giving their tired bookish or political or psychoanalytical reasons, […]
- 1996, Helen L. Harrison, Pistoles/Paroles: Money and Language in Seventeenth-century French Comedy, page 50:
  Obviously, neither Corneille nor the characters who laugh at excessively bookish speech avoid literary convention.

(characterized by expression found in books): formal, labored, literary, pedantic

given to reading; fond of study

characterized by a method of expression generally found in books