In 1968 the Beatles released a double LP simply called The Beatles.

I was ten at the time so I didn’t notice.

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The packaging on that Beatles record was plain white and so whatever the Beatles called it, everyone else called it “the white album.”

Since the word album comes from Latin albus and albus means “white,” this is fitting, if redundant.

Even in ancient Latin album (as opposed to albus) was a word in its own right. It denoted a variation on white; meaning instead “blank.”

But what is a blank sheet for except to write on?

So quickly the Latin album took on the meaning of “lists” and “official proclamations” because those were written on the blank sheet.

In English the word didn’t appear until the renaissance was well and truly up and running.

Back then using Latin was what every man, woman and child with any pretensions to education did all the time.  So in first usage, English speakers didn’t consider themselves using an English word when they used album, to them it was still a Latin word.

But the thing about English is that if you use a high faluting foreign word often enough it turns into an English word in spite of itself.

In the latter 1600s album was used to mean something like “a guest book” or “a scrap book.”  By the late 1800s an album might hold photographs.  From this vessel for collecting discrete items, in the early 1900s a collection of poems might be called an album.

The first use of album for a musical recording was in 1957 and although this use would be consistent with a sense of “a collection of discrete songs” Etymonline indicates that the reason it was called an album was that its cover was book-like.

Another word you’ll recognize would be albino.

Harry Potter, Professor Dumbledore’s first name is Albus, so he is a good wizard practicing white magic.