# a very thick book



## eno2

Hola,
Nosotros en holandés llamamos un libro usualmente literario, de ficción, con muchas páginas informalmente 'una píldora', o 'una píldora gruesa'. En español eso se llama: un mamotreto. ¿Como se llama esto en tu lengua en una sola palabra si hay una, o con una expresión idiomática?

Hello, 
We in Dutch call a book (usually one of fiction) with many pages informally 'a pill', or 'a thick pill'. In Spanish it's called: a mamotreto. Or at least that's how I remember it. How do you call this in your language in a single word, if there is one, or with an idiomatic expression?

In Dutch: Een pil. Een dikke pil. 

In English: a hefty volume????


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## lingobingo

a tome


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## eno2

Yes I see that OED confirms 'tome':


> humorous:  A book, especially a large, heavy, scholarly one. =>_‘a weighty tome’_


So thank you. 
I had no clue.
Because I see 'tome' used neutrally, for instance in tables of content: Tome Vi, VII etc...

I suppose 'tome' goes accompanied mostly with a qualification like 'weighty' or 'hefty' in that sense.


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## bearded

In Italian (idiomatic, considering the 'weight'): _un mattone._
It literally means a brick / ein Backstein.


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## eno2

Nice.


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## Circunflejo

eno2 said:


> En español eso se llama: un mamotreto.



En el caso de un libro se usaría más un tocho que un mamotreto.


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## eno2

Ah OK. Solo lo ví usado como mamotreto hasta ahora. 


> Tocho
> 4. m. coloq. Libro de muchas páginas. Ha publicado un tocho de mil páginas.


DLE

Eso es...


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## Perseas

bearded said:


> In Italian (idiomatic, considering the 'weight'): _un mattone._
> It literally means a brick / ein Backstein.


Yes, also in Greek I can imagine that one uses "brick" --> "τούβλο" for a thick book, but this is not a standard/established term. You could say this as a joke.



lingobingo said:


> a tome


"τόμος" exists also in Greek, but it can refer to any book (thin or thick), which is a part of a set of books (eg. of an encyclopedia). I assume that in English this is called a "volume".
Eg. τρί*τομο* έργο: work consisting of three volumes.


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## hui

*Finnish:*
_tiiliskivi_ (brick stone)
_tiiliskiviromaani_ (brick stone novel)

(_tiili_ = brick, _kivi_ = stone)


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## Ghabi

eno2 said:


> I suppose 'tome' goes accompanied mostly with a qualification like 'weighty' or 'hefty' in that sense.


Not really. "Tome" itself suggests that it's thick. It's kind of a false friend. In English you may also hear "door-stopper". If it's big, not just heavy, then there's the quasi-technical term "elephant folio".

In Cantonese we usually say "thick like a telephone directory", although younger people may not have ever seen a telephone directory.


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## j-p-c

In French we also nickname a thick book "un pavé", "kassei" in Dutch, "sett" in English.


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## ThomasK

I thought of "*lijvig*", but that is an adjective: lit. bodily, but of course meaning "[a book] with a big body"...

I do suspect that "pil" is regional, just like "klepper". But I suppose *"turf"* would be 'hyperregional' ;-) or standard (have come across that while surfing)…


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## lingobingo

j-p-c said:


> In French we also nickname a thick book "un pavé", "kassei" in Dutch, "sett" in English.


I had never heard of “sett” in the context of paving, but it put me in mind of a paving slab as a good synonym for a thick and heavy book. So I googled “*slab* of a book” (to see if a thick book was ever referred to as e.g. a huge/great/heavy slab of a book) and was surprised to find lots of valid examples.


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## eno2

Ghabi said:


> Not really. "Tome" itself suggests that it's thick. It's kind of a false friend. In English you may also hear "door-stopper". If it's big, not just heavy, then there's the quasi-technical term "elephant folio".
> 
> In Cantonese we usually say "thick like a telephone directory", although younger people may not have ever seen a telephone directory.


Interesting, door-stopper and elephant-folio.
Especially door-stopper sounds good...funny.

'thick like a telephone directory': quite  a mouthful, and perhaps with not much future (though  I see them still distributed and used) .


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## eno2

ThomasK said:


> I do suspect that "pil" is regional,



I had to check that and to my pleasure, DVD online gives for 'pil':


> 3 iets wat dik, lomp is in zijn soort, m.n. een dikke boterham of *een dik boek*


So it's not regional.


> just like "klepper".


Yes, but I'd rather use 'pil' in this context.


> ut I suppose *"turf"* would be 'hyperregional' ;-) or standard (have come across that while surfing)…


Yes, turf is an absolutely valid synonym for pil!


> Turf: 3 dik boek


DVD online


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## j-p-c

"Doorstop", often used to describe a heavy, useless object.
I'm reminded of an engineer describing a prototype engine developed at great expense and never put in production as an "expensive doorstop".


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## eno2

Ghabi said: door-stopper. It sounds derogative. In fact, idiomatic expressions for 'a thick book' do not necessarily have to have derogative connotations. It can be a thick work of high value and quality. The Dutch words 'pil' and 'turf' are neutral.


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## jazyk

Tijolo, a brick, in Portuguese.


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## SilFran

At least in Peruvian Spanish, that'd be a "biblia" (bible). It may not be a heavy reading, but it's a book with many many pages, and it can be about any topic (though it's mostly related to textbooks or academic reading).


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## eno2

¿Biblia? Charming but confusing. We use 'bible' figuratively for any authoritive book in any field. For instance even 'the bible of cooking' for a cookbook.


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## Encolpius

*Hungarian*: 0
*Czech*: bichle.


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## eno2

What's bichle literally?


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## Encolpius

eno2 said:


> What's bichle literally?



A large thick book . No other meaning, I think it comes from Bible.


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## SilFran

SilFran said:


> At least in Peruvian Spanish, that'd be a "biblia" (bible). It may not be a heavy reading, but it's a book with many many pages, and it can be about any topic (though it's mostly related to textbooks or academic reading).



For example:

- Para mi examen final del curso debo leer un libro de 320 páginas; o sea, una biblia.
(For the course's final exam, I must read a 320-page book--in other words, a bible).



eno2 said:


> ¿Biblia? Charming but confusing. We use 'bible' figuratively for any authoritive book in any field. For instance even 'the bible of cooking' for a cookbook.



It can be used in that sense too, when talking about an specific authoritive book in any field:

- Para mi clase de física usamos el libro "Física Esencial". Es la biblia de la física.
 (For my physics course, we use the book "Essential Physics." It's the bible of physics.)

At least in my country, anyway


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## Circunflejo

SilFran said:


> At least in Peruvian Spanish, that'd be a "biblia" (bible).



Definitely, not in Spain. Let's see if that's used in other Spanish speaking countries.


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## elroy

eno2 said:


> Because I see 'tome' used neutrally, for instance in tables of content: Tome Vi, VII etc...


 I've never seen this!   Are you sure it wasn't "volume"? 


Ghabi said:


> "door-stopper" [...] "elephant folio"


 I've never come across either of these in American English.  Maybe they're used in other varieties of English?


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## eno2

elroy said:


> I've never seen this!   Are you sure it wasn't "volume"?


I'll have to check in my Kindle, I'll come back to you. It could be the French word 'tome' in the back of my mind... But I've seen definitions of tome and they didn't look much like a specific term for a hefty volume.


> ve never come across either of these in American English.  Maybe they're used in other varieties of English?


No no, I've checked this 'doorstop'. (Elephant folio is two words and I was looking for just 1).

Just a moment.



> Doorstop: A heavy or bulky object (used especially in reference to a thick book)
> _‘his sixth novel is a thumping 400-page doorstop’_


I thought this was M-W but now I can't find it back 

It was...OED => doorstop | Definition of doorstop in US English by Oxford Dictionaries

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You see, words like mamotreto (SP), tome (ENG) can be used in the sense of tocho (SP) and doorstop (ENG) but those last are more idiomatic and, I feel (at this stage of exchanges), more specific for books. Just like the Dutch 'pil' and 'turf' are more book-specific than for instance 'knoest' or 'kanjer'. I have the feeling in my native  Dutch of course, to distinguish, but not so in English or Spanish and others.


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## eno2

ThomasK said:


> I do suspect that "pil" is regional, just like "klepper". But I suppose *"turf"* would be 'hyperregional' ;-) or standard (have come across that while surfing)…



In #27 you can see that I added 'knoest' and 'kanjer'  to 'pil' and 'turf' - with some comment...


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## elroy

eno2 said:


> But I've seen definitions of tome and they didn't look much like a specific term for a hefty volume.


 In my experience, "tome" is always used to indicate heaviness/thickness/largeness.  Dictionaries be damned.


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## bibax

eno2 said:


> What's bichle literally?





> No other meaning, I think it comes from Bible.


The Czech *bichle* [ˈbɪxlɛ] came from the (Austrian) German word *Büchlein* [ˈbyːçlaɪ̯n].

Paradoxically the German word Büchlein is a diminutive of the noun Buch [buːx] (book). Maybe the meaning of the word _*bichle*_ [ˈbɪxlɛ] in Czech (= thick book) is affected by the word *bible* [ˈbɪblɛ].

The Czech diminutive of bichle is *bichlička* (little thick book).


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## bearded

I must specify that the Italian term _mattone _(brick), as mentioned in #4, is in fact a little derogatory and not neutral.
_Quel libro è un mattone _means ''that book is 'heavy', demanding, boring'' and similar.


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## ThomasK

Just to point out: in Dutch "kanjer" can be used for anything huge ("een kanjer van een …"), but not a "turf", not so sure about "pil" and how you use it...


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## eno2

There are many idiomatic expressions with 'pil'.
But as an isolated substantive, it is mainly  used for a thick book. 


> iets wat dik, lomp is in zijn soort, m.n. een dikke boterham of een dik boek


 DVD online.
I would never use it for a thick sandwich (dikke boterham)


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## igusarov

"талмуд" ("talmud", with lowercase "t") is a joking informal way to refer to a thick book in Russian, especially if it is some kind of code. The first example from the Russian corpus is a quote from some newspaper where they say "talmud" about the collection of FIFA rules and regulations. I suppose this word can be used even by those who don't know what Talmud is :- ).

In a more formal context we would say "том" ("tome").


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## eno2

Talmud. I Like that.


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## Penyafort

In *Catalan*, people also say *totxo*, although it's not clear to me whether it has been taken from the Spanish _tocho _or it's a genuine colloquial derivation from the meaning of 'brick' (a brick in Catalan can be called _maó, _what makes it similar to the Italian cognate _mattone_, but also _totxo _when it's a thick one).

Two other words are

*llibrot *(that is, simply adding the pejorative *-ot *suffix to _llibre _'book' --it could either mean 'thick book' or 'bad book', though)

*patracol *(which is, actually, any large or thick group of pages together, as the origin is a vulgar way of deforming the word _protocol_, applied to the large number of pages you have to deal with in paperwork regarding protocols.​


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## eno2

Penyafort said:


> *totxo*,


 Google translate gives the same pronounciation as "tocho"
Nice deformation, patracol.


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## Penyafort

eno2 said:


> Google translate gives the same pronounciation as "tocho"



Yes, tx in Catalan is the Spanish ch.

The o's are different, though. The first one is an open o. The unstressed one sounds /u/.


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## Rallino

In *Turkish*, we say _tuğla_. A brick.


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## Perseas

Perseas said:


> Yes, also in Greek I can imagine that one uses "brick" --> "*τούβλο*" for a thick book





Rallino said:


> In *Turkish*, we say* tuğla*. A brick.


Τhey look similar. I've read that the Greek "túvlo" came from Lat. tub(u)lus < tubus.


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## Rallino

Perseas said:


> Τhey look similar. I've read that the Greek "túvlo" came from Lat. tub(u)lus < tubus.


Γεıα σου φίλε.
I've just checked the etymology for _tuğla_. It comes from the Greek τούβλο, indeed.


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## Perseas

Rallino said:


> Γεıα σου φίλε.
> I've just checked the etymology for _tuğla_. It comes from the Greek τούβλο, indeed.


Thank you for the answer.


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## bibax

Or from Latin _*tegula*_ (< _v._ tegere) = roof tile, like English tile, German Ziegel, Hungarian tégla, Czech cihla, etc.



> Tuğla isminin Latince TEGULA kökünden geldiği varsayılmaktadır.


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## merquiades

Yes, "door-stopper" in American English, at least in an older version of it.  My grandmother used to say "door-stopper" all the time, for any big book, especially a dictionary, which she actually did use to prop a door open.


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