- album
- 1650s, from L. album, neut. of albus "white" (see alb). In classical times "a blank tablet on which the prętor's edicts and other public matters were inscribed." Revived 16c. by German scholars whose custom was to keep an album amicorum of colleagues' signatures; meaning then expanded into "book to collect souvenirs." According to Johnson, "a book in which foreigners have long been accustomed to insert autographs of celebrated people." Photographic albums first recorded 1859. Meaning "long-playing gramophone record" is from 1957, because the sleeves they came in resembled large albums.