Bible [M E] Bible has come via Old French from ecclesiastical Latin biblia (sacra), from Greek (ta) biblia (to hagia) ‘(the holy) books’. The singular biblion was originally a diminutive of biblos ‘papyrus, scroll’, of Semitic origin. This may be from the eastern Mediterranean port of Byblos, which was a major exporter of papyrus to Greece. Bible belt for the part of America dominated by fundamental Christianity was probably coined by H. L. Mencken in 1926. Words like bibliography [E19th but L17th in the literal sense of ‘book writing’] and bibliophile [E19th] come from the same source.