# library

Pronunciation: US say "LY-brer-ee" /ˈlaɪˌbɹɛɹ.i/; UK say "LY-bree" /ˈlaɪ.bɹi/

## Noun

1. A public or institutional place that holds books and other media for reading, borrowing, or reference, and offers related services to its users.
   - Simple: A place where people can read or borrow books, movies, and other things.
   - _The city opened a new library downtown with study rooms and free internet access._
   - _Many libraries now lend e-books and audiobooks alongside printed volumes._
2. A collection of books, recordings, films, or other sources of information, kept for use or reference.
   - Simple: A group of books, recordings, films, or other information that someone has collected and keeps.
   - _Over the years she built an impressive library of rare first editions._
   - _The professor's personal library spanned every subject from botany to law._
3. A room set aside for storing books.
   - Simple: A room in a home or building used for keeping and reading books.
   - _After dinner, he went to the library in his house to read by the fire._
   - _The manor's library held thousands of leather-bound volumes._
4. A collection of software routines that programmers incorporate into or use within their own programs.
   - Simple: A set of ready-made code that programmers can add to their own programs.
   - _The developers imported a graphics library to render the game's animations._
   - _Most modern languages ship with a standard library of common functions._
5. Any organization or service that loans out items, such as seeds or musical instruments, for use by members of a community or the general public.
   - Simple: A place that lends out useful things to people, not just books.
   - _The seed library allows gardeners to borrow seeds and return some after harvest._
   - _A community library of musical instruments helps students who cannot afford their own._

## Other meanings

- (noun) A collection of cloned DNA fragments, usually maintained in host cells, that together represent the DNA of a particular source, such as an organism, a tissue, or an environmental sample.
- (noun) In Magic: The Gathering, the deck of cards from which a player draws each turn.

## Origin

This word came through Middle English and Old French from Latin librarium ("bookcase, chest for books"), from librarius ("concerning books") and liber ("the inner bark of trees; paper, parchment, book"), probably from a Proto-Indo-European base *leub(ʰ)- ("to strip, to peel"). It replaced the native Middle English bochous, from Old English bōchūs, literally "book house."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/library (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).