Other forms: paperbacks
A paperback is a book bound in a flexible card cover. A cheap paperback, out in paperback, a paperback edition.
It made books affordable from the 1930s and changed who could own a library. A paperback usually appears a year after the hardback, which is what keeps both selling.
1nounpaperbackA book bound in a flexible card cover.
“The paperback cost less than the coffee he read it over.”
paperback is a book.
Paper plus back, shortened from the older phrase paper-backed book.
From paper + back, a shortening of the older term paper-backed book.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA