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I'm looking for the word or term for a hollowed-out book used to contain objects. I've heard the terms book safe and the colorful term smuggler's Bible, but an acquaintance swears there's a single word for this that he does not remember.

Any ideas? Any other terms? Pic for reference.

enter image description here

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The closest single-word answer for you I can find is "solander."

ODO has

A protective box made in the form of a book, for holding such items as botanical specimens, maps, papers, etc.

late 18th century: named after Daniel C. Solander (1736–82), Swedish botanist.

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  • Welcome to ELU! This seems a good word, so I added in some corroboration for you. Please do that for your future answers. (Hopefully the downvote your original answer gained will be reversed.) – Andrew Leach♦ Dec 17 '14 at 7:49
  • This is not it. This is a box that looks like a book: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/… – ermanen Dec 17 '14 at 8:05
  • This was the word my acquaintance was looking for. Not exactly the same thing as a book safe, but I think it's the closest thing that's one word. – j.i.h. Dec 18 '14 at 14:13
  • @j.i.h.: Why do you put a misleading picture if you were not sure what it is then? – ermanen Dec 19 '14 at 21:38
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"Hollow book safe" and the like seem to be the only names I can find for such an object. Perhaps your friend was thinking of a steganograph, a message hidden inside a book through the use of invisible ink, a cipher, etc.

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