How did "library" get the meaning it does in English?

[Space60]

How did the word "library" get the meaning that it has in English? In every other European language with a similar looking and sounding word, it means instead what we call a "book store" or "book shop".

[Starbeam]

Library's original meaning was a book storage unit, like a case or a chest*. When these deposits became larger, it got the meaning we have in English. The bookshop meaning is from the 1500s, relatively recent, and spread from French to a bunch of other Romance languages. That might sound odd, but keep in mind their words for "book" usually make up the "libr-" portion of the word

*That's why the Romance word for library is usually some variant of *bibliotheke, Ancient Greek for "book box"