bookend

English

A simple sheet-metal bookend

Etymology

From book +‎ end.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛnd

Noun

bookend (plural bookends)

1. A heavy object or moveable support placed at one or both ends of a row of books for the purpose of keeping them upright.

   Synonym: book support

2. (figurative) Something that comes before, after, or at both sides of something else.
   • 2012, Kelly Fiveash, “Snooper's-charter plans are just misunderstood, sniffles tearful May”, in The Register‎^[1]:

     The cabinet minister's appearance served as something of a bookend to her grilling by the Home Affairs select committee in April this year […]

   • 2017, Douglas Brode, Shea T. Brode, Cynthia J. Miller, The American Civil War on Film and TV, page 214:

     In both Episode 1 and Episode 9, which serve as bookends, Burns found fascinating footage of a 1938 event at which President Franklin Roosevelt spoke to living veterans who wore the Blue and the Gray; […]

   • 2022 September 19, Alan Cowell, “From Coronation to Funeral: Bookends to the Life of a Queen, and a Generation”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     And it seemed, perhaps fancifully, that those two moments had become the bookends of a generation and of a nation’s frayed sense of equilibrium.

Alternate forms

• book-end
• book end

Translations

object designed to keep books upright

• Catalan: aguantallibres m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 書擋／书挡 (shūdǎng)

• Danish: bogstøtte c
• Dutch: boekensteun (nl) m
• Esperanto: libroapogilo sg
• Finnish: kirjatuki (fi)
• French: serre-livre (fr) m
• German: Buchstütze (de) f
• Icelandic: bókastoð f
• Italian: reggilibro (it) m
• Japanese: ブックエンド (ja) (bukkuendo), 本立て (ja) (hondate)
• Korean: 북엔드 (bugendeu)
• Norwegian: bokstøtte
• Portuguese: bibliocanto m
• Russian: книгодержа́тель (ru) m (knigoderžátelʹ), подпо́рка для книг f (podpórka dlja knig)
• Spanish: sujetalibros m
• Swedish: bokstöd (sv) n
• Welsh: pentan llyfrau m, pentan llyfrau m

Verb

bookend (third-person singular simple present bookends, present participle bookending, simple past and past participle bookended)

1. (transitive) To come before and after, or at both sides of.

   Synonym: flank

   • 2006, Henry Owings, Patton Oswalt, The Overrated Book‎^[3], →ISBN, page 105:

     Side one has good songs bookended by better songs.

   • 2015 October 4, Mark Kermode, “Macbeth review – a spittle-flecked Shakespearean war film”, in The Observer‎^[4]:

     The tale is bookended by battles – faces meatily pummelled, bones crunchily broken and throats spurtingly sliced as offstage conflicts are placed centre-screen.

   • 2016 July 28, Peter Bradshaw, “Barry Lyndon review – Kubrick's intimate epic of utter lucidity”, in The Guardian‎^[5], →ISSN:

     Taking the 18th-century tale at a steady, relentless drumbeat, and with a seductively cool detachment, Kubrick guides you through his hero’s rise and fall, bookended by two sensational duelling scenes.

   • 2020 February 7, P. D. Smith, quoting Maria Popova, “Figuring by Maria Popova review – distillation of a lifetime's reading”, in The Guardian‎^[6], →ISSN:

     Her aim is to answer questions that “raze to the bone of life”, including the most profound of all: “How, in this blink of existence bookended by nothingness, do we attain completeness of being?”

   • 2021 February 10, Dr Joseph Brennan, “Versatile and functional funiculars”, in RAIL, number 924, page 61:

     Yes, there are leisure lines to be enjoyed - in the Welsh 'Queen' resorts of Llandudno and Aberystwyth, or the steamer jewel of Douglas on the Isle of Man, where dramatic mountain and hill inclines were overcome and bookended with amusements and culinary amenities for the enjoyment of visitors.

Translations

to come before and after, or at both sides of — see also flank

• German: einrahmen (de)
• Hungarian: közrefog (hu)