Buying Books: What do those words mean?

Hello Fellow Book Readers!
Unless you are buying books that are considered reading copies, books that you are obtaining for your own pleasure and all you need are the words or a not-so perfect, you as the buyer are going to encounter words that good booksellers use.If you are like I was before I beganselling books, you may not know what they mean. In fact, you can judge a bookseller by how he or she describes the cover -- and everything in-between! Here is a list of the most gemon descriptive book condition terms.
This is by no means a geplete list. For a good description of book terminology I suggest going to the gemunity pages, then to Discussion Boards followed by Booksellers. In the upper right corner you will find links that will give detailed information.
Shelfwear: When books sit on a shelf they canget rubbed on the bottom and sometimes on the top. This can be seen on those areas of the cover. The paper or cloth may be a little fuzzy or frayed, and it might be a little soiled.
Soil: Most booksellers don't use the word dirt. It's call soil.
Bumped: The corners of book covers often get bent or dented, usually in towards the book. This is called bumped.
Rolled, Cocked, or Shifted Off-Center: Books that are stored on a shelffor any length of time usually lookcrooked. The front and back covers don't match up either vertically or horizontally.
Gilt: This is the gold color often used for lettering on hardcover books, and it also describes the outside edges of paper when gold or gold-color has been applied.
Scratches and Rubbing: This pertains to the dustjacket. Shiny-finish paper very easily gets little scratches and scrapes (rubbing). It is even found very often on brand new books, but still should be noted. Often it is not visible upon first inspection, but can be seen close up, or when held at an angle.
Edgewear: Any time you see adjectives with the word edgewear it is your clue that the edges are not perfect. You might see words like nicks, tears, scrapes, dents, and others.
Price-clipped: Pretty self-explanatory, but still worth noting. The spot where the price on the dustjacket has been cut off.
Bookmarked: This refers to the corner of a page being bent (creased) to mark the reader's spot.
Endpaper / Front Free Endpaper: When a book is opened the page on the other side of the cover is called the paste-down. The blank page opposite this is called the front free endpaper.
Frontispiece: Especially in old books, there is often a picture or illustrationat the very beginning of a book. This is the frontispiece.
Foxing: Paper, some more than others, can have a reaction to its environment and develop brown spots to varying degrees. This is not the same as different kinds of stains.
Yellowed / Tanned: Another age-related term. Paper can have yellowing or tanning as it ages and reacts to the environment.
Ex-Library / Ex-Libris: This means the book came from a library. You may find the library cataloging information on the outside of the book on the spine, or check-out information inside the book. These generally should have some kind of indication in the book that the library has discarded the book.
Remainder / Remainder Copy: These usually have a mark on the bottom of a book, such as made bya black-marker. These are publisher's overstock or damaged books, sold at a discount.
Uncut Edges: This does not mean that the page edges were never cut apart at the time of printing. It means that the paper along the open side edge of a book are uneven. They were never uniformly cut to the same length.
Boards: Hardcovers on books are called boards. There are cloth boards and paper boards.
Bowed: Depending on how a book is stored and for other reasons, the hard cover can pull away from the pages of a book.
Hinge: You might see in a description somethinglike hinge split. The hinge is the inside edge of the book between the endpapers, or where the sections of pages open away from the book.. Itis split when the paper tears but still be intact (attached to the book) or the whole thing can split all the way through.
Sewn or Glued Binding: When the sections of a book are sewn together inside of a book it is said to have a sewn binding. A good majority of new books have glued bindings -- the pages are glued together on the side inside the spine.
Tight Binding: New or carefully read books have tight bindings. When you open a book with this the pages do not lay flat.
Shaken: The cover of a book and its pages move in any direction -- sometimes only slightly, but it can also be when it's about to gepletely fall apart.