biblioclast

Etymology

From biblio- + -clast.

biblioclast means one who destroys books, especially the Bible. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.

Why this word is great

BIBLIOCLAST — [Noun] One who mutilates or destroys books, especially sacred texts such as the Bible. Formed within English from the combining forms biblio- (from Greek biblion, "book") and -clast (from Greek -klastēs, "breaker"). Unlike the bibliophile, whose devotion is one of preservation and reverence, or the bibliotaph, who entombs volumes in jealous secrecy, the biblioclast’s creed is annihilation. It is the razor’s hiss through a vellum page, the acrid sting of burning ink on papyrus, and the leaden thud of a censored text dropped into a river—a testament not to ignorance, but to the terrifying power found in making a thought irrevocably absent.

noun

One who destroys books, especially the Bible.“[I]t is a serious matter when nature produces such a wicked old biblioclast as John Bagford, one of the founders of the Antiquarian Society, who in the beginning of the last century went about the country, from library to library, tearing away title-pages from rare books of all sizes.”