Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): El lomo de este libro está un poco doblado.

Breakdown of El lomo de este libro está un poco doblado.

What does lomo mean here?

Here lomo means the spine of a book: the part you see on the shelf where the title is often printed.

Outside this context, lomo can also mean loin or back in other situations, so the exact meaning depends on context.

Why is it el lomo and not just lomo?

Spanish usually uses the definite article more often than English.

So el lomo de este libro literally means the spine of this book.

In English, you might sometimes say this book’s spine, but Spanish commonly prefers:

rather than a direct equivalent of this book’s spine.

Why does Spanish use de este libro instead of something like este libro’s?

Spanish normally shows possession with de.

So:

English often uses ’s, but Spanish does not. The usual structure is:

Examples: