album
/ˈalbəm
/- One of his greatest pastimes was looking at photo albums and books of family history.
- There are no photographs from his family album or of him performing with the famous.
- When Maura met with me she carried at least five or six photo albums and bags of photographs.
- First albums are often collections of tracks recorded over a long period of time.
- You recorded two albums as part of Bel Canto, which was, and still is, a rather successful band.
- Spanning four albums, this collection is an autobiography of her life over the past decade.
Origin
Early 17th century: from Latin, neuter of albus 'white' used as a noun meaning 'a blank tablet'. Taken into English from the German use of the Latin phrase album amicorum 'album of friends' (a blank book in which autographs, drawings, poems, etc. were collected), it was originally used consciously as a Latin word.
The Latin word albus ‘white’ was originally used as a noun meaning ‘a white (or rather blank) marble tablet’ on which public notices were written. Brought into English as album, the word has subsequently been used to describe various blank books used for compiling a collection of items, such as stamps or photographs, and in the 1950s became applied to a collection of recorded pieces of music. Other alb- words with an element of whiteness in their meaning include albino (late 18th century), albumen (late 16th century), the white of the egg, and Albion. See also auburn, candid