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Spanish Word of the Day Archive
Monday August 13, 2007
librería, noun:
bookstore
una librería de ocasión
a second-hand bookstore
It looks as though it means library, but it doesn’t. It means bookstore. Stores in Spanish often take their names from the things sold in them plus the ending -ería. In this case, books are sold, hence libro + -ería = librería. Some other names of stores like this are la papelería (stationery store, from el papel, paper), la carnicería (butcher’s, from la carne, meat) and la pastelería (patisserie, from el pastel, cake).
The Spanish word for library is la biblioteca.
la biblioteca pública
the public library
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