Word.ws English Dictionary

write the book

write the book verb: to be an authoritative expert on some specified topic.

Verb

write the book (third-person singular simple present writes the book, present participle writing the book, simple past wrote the book, past participle written the book)

  1. (colloquial, idiomatic, with-on) To be an authoritative expert on some specified topic.
    • Do I know how to play chess? I wrote the book on it!

Forms of write the book

third-person singular presentwrites the book
present participlewriting the book
pastwrote the book
past participlewritten the book

Questions about write the book

What does write the book mean?
Write the book means to be an authoritative expert on some specified topic.
What part of speech is write the book?
Write the book is a verb.
What is the past tense of write the book?
The past tense of write the book is wrote the book.

Words near write the book in the dictionary

  1. write once, read many
  2. write one's own ticket
  3. write oneself into a corner
  4. write out
  5. write over
  6. write the book
  7. write up
  8. write-ahead log
  9. write-ahead logging
  10. write-around
  11. write-back

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: write the book (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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