Gebundene

Gebundene is a German term that most often appears as the attributive form of the past participle gebunden, meaning bound or tied. As an adjective, it describes something that is physically bound, joined, or constrained, and it can occur in various compound expressions such as gebundene Form or in phrases like in gebundener Weise. The word itself is not a standalone concept but a customary form used within larger linguistic or bibliographic contexts.

In bibliographic and book-trade use, gebundene Ausgabe denotes a hardcover edition. In catalogs and booksellers’ listings this usage is common, and the phrase is sometimes shortened to Gebundene to indicate the binding type. This contrasts with Taschenbuch, which denotes a paperback edition. The distinction between gebundene Ausgabe and other formats helps readers and librarians distinguish editions by binding instead of by content.

In linguistics, gebundene Morpheme (bound morphemes) refers to affixes and other morphemes that cannot stand alone. The term is used to distinguish bound morphemes from freie Morpheme (free morphemes), which can function as independent words. Examples include suffixes, prefixes, and inflectional endings in many languages. In this usage, gebundene modifies the noun phrase and does not denote a specific object but a category of linguistic units.

Etymology traces gebunden to the verb binden (to bind), with gebunden forming the participle that furnishes the adjective Gebundene. See also Buchbindung, Hardcover, Taschenbuch, Morphem.