Other forms: grimoires
A grimoire is a book of spells. An ancient grimoire, open the grimoire, the wizard's grimoire.
It is the proper name for the magician's book of rituals, materials and invocations, and real historical grimoires exist — the Key of Solomon is the best known. In fantasy fiction it is standard furniture. The word is a variant of the French for grammar, because to an illiterate population a book of Latin grammar and a book of spells were indistinguishable, which is also where glamour comes from.
1noungrimoireA book of spells.
“The young witch found an old grimoire full of spells in her grandmother's attic.”
grimoire is a book of magic.
GRIMoire → a GRIM book of spells
A grim black book of spells, and the words in it are not for you.
hooks ontogrim
French grimoire is a variant of grammaire, grammar, from Latin grammatica. To people who could not read, a book of Latin grammar looked like a book of spells — and glamour comes from the same word.
Proto-Indo-European
*gerbʰ- — to carve
Ancient Greek
γρᾰμμᾰτῐκός — knowing one's letters; concerned with textual criticism
Latin
grammatica — grammar; philology
Old French
gramaire — grammar; grimoire; conjurer, magician
French
grimoire
English, today
grimoire
Built from
Borrowed from French grimoire, a variant of grammaire, from Old French gramaire (“grammar; grimoire; conjurer, magician”), from Latin grammatica (“grammar; philology”), from grammaticus (“relating to grammar, grammatical”), from Ancient Greek γρᾰμμᾰτῐκός (“knowing one's letters; concerned with textual criticism”), from γράμμα + -ῐκός. γράμμα is derived from γρᾰ́φω + -μᾰ. The English word is a a doublet of glamour and glamoury and gramarye and grammar.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA