Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- a book, especially a very heavy, large, or learned book.
- a volume forming a part of a larger work.
- a combining form with the meanings “cutting instrument” (microtome; osteotome), “segment, somite” (sclerotome), used in the formation of compound words.
noun
- a large weighty book
- one of the several volumes of a work
n combining form
- indicating an instrument for cuttingosteotome
1510s, from Middle French tome, from Latin tomus “section of a book, tome,” from Greek tomos “volume, section of a book,” originally “section, piece cut off,” from temnein “to cut,” from PIE *tom-/*tem- “to cut” (cf. second element in Latin aestimare “to value, appraise,” Old Church Slavonic tina “to cleave, split,” Middle Irish tamnaim “I cut off,” Welsh tam “morsel”). Originally “a single volume of a multi-volume work;” sense of “a large book” is attested from 1570s.
suff.
- Part; area; segment:dermatome.
- Cutting instrument:microtome.