How to use bookish in a sentence

13 example sentences · adjective

Bookish means fond of reading or studying, especially said of someone lacking social skills as a result. Example: “She's a quiet, bookish person, but she has a rebellious streak.”

Examples of bookish by meaning

adjectiveFond of reading or studying, especially said of someone lacking social skills as a result.

He did change his round spectacles to look less “bookish”.2020 September 3, Kim Willsher, “French reporter who joined police exposes racism and violence”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

adjectiveCharacterized by a method of expression generally found in books.

Obviously, neither Corneille nor the characters who laugh at excessively bookish speech avoid literary convention.1996, Helen L. Harrison, Pistoles/Paroles: Money and Language in Seventeenth-century French Comedy, page 50

More sentences with bookish

She's a quiet, bookish person, but she has a rebellious streak.From the entry streak
Horowitz’s Steve we see both bookish diffidence and broish expectations of how the world will treat him.2018 April 10, Alexis Soloski, “Review: In ‘Dutch Masters,’ Subway Seatmates, So Close and Yet So Far”, in The New York Times. From the entry broish
A bookish young man with John Lennon glasses looked up, smiled, and answered in a northern accent.2003, Greg Iles, Sleep No More, page 36. From the entry John Lennon glasses
How could such confirmedly bookish types write an I-love-reading book so fundamentally tone deaf as to why reading can inspire love?2008 May 11, Roger Sutton, “Because It’s Good for You”, in New York Times. From the entry confirmedly
The world of books and bookish folk is very vague, more like a dream memory than an actuality.1904, Jack London, chapter 30, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC. From the entry foray
After a turbulent youth — the bookish, asthmatic child became a teenage gangbanger, juvenile offender and drug addict — Coolio worked as a volunteer firefighter.2022 September 29, Eduardo Medina, McKenna Oxenden, “Coolio, ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ Rapper, Dies at 59”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry gangbanger
Shafak sketches these Armenians flatly and superficially, as uniformly and fiercely anti-Turk — and as overprotectively fretful about beautiful and bookish Armanoush.2007 January 21, Lorraine Adams, “Armenian in Istanbul”, in New York Times. From the entry overprotectively
I see it this way: When I was a kid I was bookish, extremely literate for my age, the usual cliched embryonic SF reader.1997 August 22, Paul Vincent, “Re: "A message in Mime Format"”, in rec.arts.sf.fandom (Usenet), message-ID <5tkqt8$pb5$1@despair.u-net.com>. From the entry librovore
So seeing him looking all quiet and bookish, Power goes up to him accompanied by a few henchboys and says: `'Can you handle yourself, Dwyer?1991, Gretta Curran Browne, Fire On The Hill. From the entry henchboy
Furuseth was right; I was abnormal, an "emotionless monster," a strange bookish creature, capable of pleasuring in sensations only of the mind.1904, Jack London, chapter 23, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC. From the entry abnormal
As usual his adventurizing of the previously undefined is precipitate, cutting off the inductive process of inquiry with a trenchant deduction formulated on the basis of bookish assumptions.1992, Steven D. Hutchinson, Cervantine Journeys, page 151. From the entry adventurize

Meaning of bookish

adjective Fond of reading or studying, especially said of someone lacking social skills as a result.
adjective Characterized by a method of expression generally found in books.

Full definition of bookish

Questions about bookish in a sentence

How do you use bookish in a sentence?: Bookish is used as an adjective. For example: “She's a quiet, bookish person, but she has a rebellious streak.”
What is a short sentence with bookish?: “He did change his round spectacles to look less “bookish”.”
What does bookish mean?: Bookish means fond of reading or studying, especially said of someone lacking social skills as a result.

Adapted from Wiktionary: bookish (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use bookish in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/bookish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.