Meaning

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

Definitions by Sense

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.
2. (figurative) Something that comes before, after, or at both sides of something else.
3. (transitive, often figurative) To come before and after, or at both sides of.

Example Sentences

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

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; […]

[…] radio techniques, including the use of sound montage and the placement of musical "bookends" at the beginning and end of radio programs […]

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.

In the factory, a colourful woodland of knitted trees points towards a collection of bookends commissioned from Scottish designers and inspired by the globetrotting travels in 1894 of Dundee Courier journalists Marie Imandt and Bessie Maxwell.

Side one has good songs bookended by better songs.

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

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.

Word Forms

• bookends
• book-end
• book end
• bookending
• bookended

Synonyms for bookend

Related Words

When Should You Use Bookend?

Use bookend when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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