album

Meanings

1. A collection of songs released together as one product.
2. A book for holding photographs, stamps or other items.

Example sentences

• "Their new album came out last Friday and is already at the top of the charts."

  Level A2, Meaning 1

• "She keeps all her holiday pictures in a photo album."

  Level A1, Meaning 2

• "My favorite album has twelve songs."

  Level A1, Meaning 1

• "The band is working on its second album."

  Level A2, Meaning 1

Look-alikes and common mistakes

• record : A record is a vinyl disc or the act of recording. An album is a set of songs, in any form.
• single : A single is one song released alone. An album has many songs.

Word family and forms

Forms: albums

Word partners

Words and phrases that often go with "album".

• a photo album
• a new album
• release an album
• a debut album
• the album cover
• a family album

Origin

Album was borrowed into English in the 1600s from Latin album, a blank white tablet used for writing notices, from albus, meaning white. A white page was something you could fill, and later the word came to mean a book of blank pages for photos and then a set of songs.

Checked against: Wiktionary, the free dictionary, Dictionary.com.

How to remember it

Album has a b in the middle, like alBum. Say it as AL-bum and picture a book of photos.

Test yourself

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