English

Noun

helluo librorum ‎(plural helluones librorum)

1. (now rare)^[1] An obsessive and insatiable bookworm.^[1]
   • 1844, E. A. Poe, Marginalia

     And, even physically considered, knowledge breeds knowledge, as gold gold; for he who reads really much, finds his capacity to read increase in geometrical ratio. The helluo librorum will but glance at the page which detains the ordinary reader some minutes; and the difference in the absolute reading (its uses considered), will be in favor of the helluo, who will have winnowed the matter of which the tyro mumbled both the seeds and the chaff.

   • 1864, James Waddell Alexander, Thoughts on preaching [ed. by S.D. Alexander], page 172

     There is surely some point beyond which the acquisition of other men’s thoughts must not be carried. This we say for the sake of those helluones librorum, who read forever and without stint; browsing as diligently as oxen in the green herbage of rich meads, but, unlike these, never lying down to ruminate. Life is too short, Art is too long, for a human mind to make perpetual accretion of book-learning, without halt. Sūfflaminandum est.

References

1. 1 2 3 4 5 “helluo librorum, n.” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [Draft entry; Mar. 2008]

Latin

Noun

helluō librōrum

1. A helluo librorum.