bookend

Etymology

book + end

noun

1. A heavy object or moveable support placed at one or both ends of a row of books for the purpose of keeping them upright.
2. (figurative) Something that comes before, after, or at both sides of something else.
   The cabinet minister's appearance served as something of a bookend to her grilling by the Home Affairs select committee in April this year[…] 2012, Kelly Fiveash, “Snooper's-charter plans are just misunderstood, sniffles tearful May”, in The Register
   In both Episode 1 and Episode 9, which serve as bookends, Burns found fascinating footage of a 1938 event at which President Franklin Roosevelt spoke to living veterans who wore the Blue and the Gray; […] 2017, Douglas Brode, Shea T. Brode, Cynthia J. Miller, The American Civil War on Film and TV, page 214
   And it seemed, perhaps fancifully, that those two moments had become the bookends of a generation and of a nation’s frayed sense of equilibrium. 2022-09-19, Alan Cowell, “From Coronation to Funeral: Bookends to the Life of a Queen, and a Generation”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

verb

1. (transitive) To come before and after, or at both sides of.
   Side one has good songs bookended by better songs. 2006, Henry Owings, Patton Oswalt, The Overrated Book, page 105
   The tale is bookended by battles – faces meatily pummelled, bones crunchily broken and throats spurtingly sliced as offstage conflicts are placed centre-screen. October 4, 2015, Mark Kermode, “Macbeth review – a spittle-flecked Shakespearean war film”, in The Observer
   Yes, there are leisure lines to be enjoyed - in the Welsh 'Queen' resorts of Llandudno and Aberystwyth, or the steamer jewel of Douglas on the Isle of Man, where dramatic mountain and hill inclines were overcome and bookended with amusements and culinary amenities for the enjoyment of visitors. February 10 2021, Dr Joseph Brennan, “Versatile and functional funiculars”, in RAIL, number 924, page 61