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I collect game dice as a hobby. What is a word for someone who collects dice?

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    seems to be "dice collector"
    – JoseK
    Jun 21, 2011 at 11:13
  • 8
    "D&D player" :-)
    – Mark Hurd
    Jun 21, 2011 at 12:54
  • @Manu Are they 'open' dice or 'closed' dice? :p
    – Darwy
    Sep 12, 2011 at 9:55

8 Answers 8

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Edited:
The official word is "dice collector". This is taken from a dice collecting site:

You'll be able to chat to fellow dice collectors from all over the world,

There's also the Dice Collector Forum, for discussing dice collecting.

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  • I believe this refers to a personal who physically collects dice, as part of the game of Craps, rather than someone who collects dice as a hobby.
    – rintaun
    Jun 21, 2011 at 11:29
  • surely you're mistaking the OP's meaning of "collects" here ! He means as a hobby , and not recover
    – JoseK
    Jun 21, 2011 at 11:29
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    Oh, shucks! All that trouble for nothing!
    – Thursagen
    Jun 21, 2011 at 11:32
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If you mean what is the word that has the same relation to game dice collection as philately to stamp collection?

Then, I don't think there is already one (also note: while dictionaries define philately as collection and study of stamps, according to encyclopedias stamp collecting is not the same as philately, which is the study of stamps, see here and here).

If you want to be inventive you could attempt to coin:

philastragaly
phil- "loving" + astragaloi "knucklebones"

EDIT: This form was chosen due to etymology of philately

The word "philately" is the English version of the French word "philatélie", coined by Georges Herpin in 1864. Herpin stated that stamps had been collected and studied for the previous six or seven years and a better name was required for the new hobby than timbromanie, which was disliked. He took the Greek root word phil or philo, meaning an attraction or affinity for something, and ateleia, meaning "exempt from duties and taxes" to form "philatelie". The introduction of postage stamps meant that the receipt of letters was now free of charge, whereas before stamps it was normal for postal charges to be paid by the recipient of a letter.

The alternative terms "timbromania", "timbrophily" and "timbrology" gradually fell out of use as philately gained acceptance during the 1860s.

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    Perhaps it would be better to have "philastragaly" or "philastragale", on the pattern of "philanthropy" or "misanthrope" (not "philanthropoi", "misanthropoi", even though "men" is "anthropoi" in Greek).
    – psmears
    Jun 21, 2011 at 12:00
  • My mistake. You see I'm french and in French "philatélie" means stamp collecting, "numismatie" means coin collecting and so on. I only recently (10 minutes ago) learned that in english those words mean "the study of _"
    – Manu
    Jun 21, 2011 at 12:01
  • @psmears, I've put in your suggested form of philastragaly
    – Unreason
    Jun 21, 2011 at 12:20
  • It seems that, even in French, the word means "study of _" as well as "collecting _"
    – Manu
    Jun 21, 2011 at 15:17
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    I think lots of English speakers also believe philately means stamp collecting (and if lots of English speakers believe it, who's to say they're wrong?).
    – Peter Shor
    Sep 6, 2011 at 10:45
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Following "coin collector", "stamp collector", and so on, the collector of dice should be known as a "die collector".

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    +1 for the use of "die" as the singular to follow "coin" and "stamp".
    – MisterSquonk
    Jun 21, 2011 at 22:48
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The Romans had actual dice, rather than the Greek knucklebones: the word was alea, as in Caesar's "Alea iacta est". Wouldn't aleaphile be easier to pronounce?

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going with Unreason may I propose astragaloiphile

and as psmears suggested (going by the "anthromorphoi" precedent) - astragalophile

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    I think "astragalophile" would work slightly better - it's "anthropophage" not "anthropoiphage" ("men" is "anthropoi").
    – psmears
    Jun 21, 2011 at 12:01
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    I used the reverse pattern to mimic philately (which, btw, has interesting etymology)
    – Unreason
    Jun 21, 2011 at 12:21
  • @psmears the thought occurred to me :) thanks for the "anthropoi" precedent - I'll include it in the edited answer @Unreason oh that's why you ordered it like that - nice suggestion btw - I'm just a dwarf standing on the shoulder of giants :)
    – Paul Amerigo Pajo
    Jun 22, 2011 at 14:02
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A tongue-in-cheek term:

Someone who collects dice is a cubist.

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    Nearly funny, except for all those non-cubic polyhedra they use for dice with other than 6 sides :)
    – Engineer
    Oct 14, 2011 at 20:49
  • @NickWiggill, details, details...
    – Caleb
    Oct 14, 2011 at 21:36
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    This is really a comment, not an answer to the question. Please use "add comment" to leave feedback for the author.
    – tchrist ♦
    Aug 19, 2012 at 2:37
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    @tchrist Mine may not be the answer, but it's certainly an answer. The OP doesn't specify the context, and a tongue-in-cheek term may be helpful, if not to the OP then perhaps to a future reader. The question asks for a term, and I offered one. I'm not asking for clarification -- I don't understand why you think this should be a comment.
    – Caleb
    Aug 19, 2012 at 3:26
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    @tchrist It's meant to be a humorous term, but I didn't offer this answer simply as a joke. The set of amusing answer and the set of "real" answers do occasionally intersect.
    – Caleb
    Aug 19, 2012 at 3:49
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Philocubist is a person who loves dice games but not specifically a collector, and tesserarian is "of, like or pertaining to dice games" but even though dice games pre-date historical records, there is not a known term used by present-day collectors

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You collect dice with a rake at a craps table (and other less popular games). A more invented term for a die collector would be a raker.

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