Paperback

//ˈpeɪ.pə.bæk// adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A book with flexible binding.
  2. 2
    a book with paper covers wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To issue or publish (a book) in a paperback edition. transitive

    "Max was anticipating paperbacking The Bodley Head's books in house rather than licensing the paperback rights to a third party, like Penguin, which reduced his royalties and might eventually lose him authors to vertical publishers."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Having flexible binding. not-comparable
Adjective
  1. 1
    (of books) having a flexible binding wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
paperbackedbest sellerbookbound bookclassiccoloring book

Example

More examples

"Is there a paperback edition of this book?"

Etymology

From paper + back, a shortening of the older term paper-backed book.

Related phrases

trade paperback

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.