Book lovers the world over have their own special nicknames. In English speaking countries, folks who are especially fond of reading are of often called “bookworms”.  The term bookworm comes from the holes in printed materials caused by larvae of various types of insects. This includes a huge variety of species of beetles, moths and, cockroaches.  The term appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1580 for the first time. While first recorded use of the word “bookworm” referring to a person was in 1580, in a correspondence between the English poet Edmund Spenser and his friend Gabriel Harvey.

In France, the word for “bookworm” is “rat de bibliothèque” (library rat). In German, it’s “Bücherwurm” (bookworm). In Italy, the most common way to describe a book lover is “topo di biblioteca,”  which is a library mouse. The same in Spain – “ratón de biblioteca” is nothing else but a library mouse.

Personally, I’m partial to the Scandinavians who lean towards “booknerd”  rather than “bookworm”. In Swedish, it’s “boknörd,” in Danish – “bognørd,” and in Norwegian – “boknørd”.Whatever your favorite terminology is for bibliophiles, the excellent infographic map above from Mapologies shows what bookworms are called in almost any language spoken in Europe.