BOOKISH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bookish mean? 

• BOOKISH (adjective)
  The adjective BOOKISH has 1 sense:

1. characterized by diligent study and fondness for reading

  Familiarity information: BOOKISH used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BOOKISH (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Characterized by diligent study and fondness for reading

Synonyms:

bookish; studious

Context example:

a quiet studious child

Similar:

scholarly (characteristic of scholars or scholarship)

Derivation:

bookishness (exaggerated studiousness)

 Context examples 

And yet it could not be. It was impossible. Besides, I was not skilled in the speech of eyes. I was only Humphrey Van Weyden, a bookish fellow who loved.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

They think Charles might not be learned and bookish enough to please Lady Russell, and that therefore, she persuaded Anne to refuse him.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I would work my will through it all, in spite of Wolf Larsen and of my own thirty-five bookish years.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Furuseth was right; I was abnormal, an “emotionless monster,” a strange bookish creature, capable of pleasuring in sensations only of the mind.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Of course, my philosophy had always recognized the inevitableness of the love-call sooner or later; but long years of bookish silence had made me inattentive and unprepared.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The world of books and bookish folk is very vague, more like a dream memory than an actuality.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)