0 a useful book or document that you can check regularly for information about something:
These volumes became the vade mecum for modern British historians and political scientists.
The Constance Spry Cookery Book was an indispensable kitchen vade mecum, a bestseller for about 20 years.
There is no vade mecum to point the way.
How to Cure a Hangover is a vade mecum of indispensable bar-room wisdom.
The book was intended to be a vade mecum for the inter-war generation of independent women whose careers led them to live alone in New York.