† 1. The manufacture of books (as material articles). Obs.
1487. Ch.-warden’s Acc. St. Dunstan’s, Canterb., John Casse hathe delyueryd … to the booke makyng iijs. iiijd.
2. The compilation of books. (Now usually contemptuous: see prec. word.) Also attrib.
1589. Marprel. Epit. (1843), 8. Note here a new founde manner of bookemaking.
1615. Latham, Falconry, Ded. I am not so well experienced in the art of bookemaking.
1794. Mathias, Pursuits Lit. (1798), 384. It is mere book-making, beneath the character of so learned a gentleman as Dr. Warton.
1865. Englishm. Mag., 220. Bookmaking now has got a bad name, or at any rate the term is used in a bad sense.
3. The making of a betting-book.
1886. Boston (Mass.) Herald, 16 July. In England, bookmaking is rigidly prohibited elsewhere, but on the race tracks it is allowed.
