album [E17th] The Latin word albus ‘white’ was also used as a noun meaning ‘a white (or rather blank) marble tablet’ on which public notices were written. Brought into English as album, the word has subsequently been used to describe various blank books used for compiling a collection of items, such as stamps or photographs [M19th], and in the 1940s became applied to a collection of recorded pieces of music. Other alb- words with an element of whiteness in their meaning include albino [L18th], and albumen [L16th], the white of the egg. See also auburn, candid.