The root word of biography
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Credit for this article is due to both New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. Astrology, Numerology, Demonology (Noun) The Greek word mythos means ”speech, “story,” or “saga.” The word...
Origin and history of biography
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biography(n.)
1680s, "the histories of individual lives, as a branch of literature," probably from Medieval Latin biographia, from later Greek biographia "description of life" (which was not in classical Greek, bios alone being the word there for it), from Greek bios "life" (from PIE root *gwei- "to live") + graphia "record, account" (see -graphy).
The meaning "a history of some one person's life" is from 1791.
The meaning "life course of any living being" is by 1854.
biographynoun
There are three meanings listed in OED's entry for the noun biography. 1250, from Middle English adjective lief "esteemed, beloved, dear," from Old English leof "dear, valued, beloved, pleasant" (also as a noun, "a beloved person, friend"), from Proto-Germanic *leuba- (source also of Old Norse lj
c.
The writer of a biography is a biographer, but when a person writes the story of his or her own life, the work is called an autobiography, from “auto,” meaning “self,” and “bio,” life. Pronunciation probably influenced by bio- in terms like bio-chemistry, bio-medical, etc. Earlier shortened forms were biog (1942), biograph (1865).
adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.
"dearly, gladly, willingly" (obsolete or archaic), c.
If The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, published in 1933, wasn’t actually written by Alice B. Toklas but rather by her life companion, the unconventional writer Gertrude Stein, that was because Stein had a cheeky disregard for categories.
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1300, "counting," especially "reckoning of money received and paid, detailed statement of funds owed or spent or property held," from Old French acont "(financial) account, reckoning, terminal payment," from a "to" (see ad-) + cont "counting, reckoning of money to be paid," fr
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Dictionary entries near biography
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Etymology
From New Latin biographia, formed from Ancient Greekβίος or bíos (life) + γράφω or gráphō (write).
Philology (from the Greek phil...
Mythology, Theology.
- There are many biographies of Benjamin Franklin.
Derived terms
- antibiography
- autobiography
- biographee
- biographize
- biomythography
- heterobiography
- minibiography
- osteobiography
- photobiography
- psychobiography
Related terms
- biographer
- biographical
- biographism
- hagiography
- pathography
Verb
biography (third-person singular simple present biographies, present participle biographying, simple past and past participle biographied)
- (transitive) To write a biography of.
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors copied and adjusted this Wiktionary entry in accordance with NWEstandards.
No one-word verb form has become common; biographise/biographize (1800), biography (1844), biograph (1849) have been tried.
also from 1680s
Entries linking to biography
"a memoir of a person written by himself," 1797, from auto- + biography.
Noun
biography (countable and uncountable, plural biographies)
- A person's life story, especially one published. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. a biographical motion picture).
See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence.
About 10occurrences per million words in modern written English
| 1750 | 0.57 |
| 1760 | 0.32 |
| 1770 | 0.36 |
| 1780 | 0.71 |
| 1790 | 1.4 |
| 1800 | 2.7 |
| 1810 | 2.8 |
| 1820 | 3.1 |
| 1830 | 4.9 |
| 1840 | 5.6 |
| 1850 | 7.9 |
| 1860 | 7.3 |
| 1870 | 7.9 |
| 1880 | 9.5 |
| 1890 | 10 |
| 1900 | 10 |
| 1910 | 9.3 |
| 1920 | 10 |
| 1930 | 12 |
| 1940 | 12 |
| 1950 | 12 |
| 1960 | 12 |
| 1970 | 12 |
| 1980 | 12 |
| 1990 | 12 |
| 2000 | 11 |
| 2010 | 11 |
biography is a borrowing from Latin.
Etymons:Latinbiographia.
Earliest known use
mid 1600s
The earliest known use of the noun biography is in the mid 1600s.
OED's earliest evidence for biography is from 1661, in the writing of John Fell, bishop of Oxford.
/bʌɪˈɒɡrəfi/
bigh-OG-ruh-fee
/baɪˈɑɡrəfi/
bigh-AH-gruh-fee
Nearby entries
- biognosy, n.1880
- biograph, n.1825–
- biograph, v.1776–
- biographee, n.1812–
- biographer, n.1644–
- biographic, adj.1752–
- biographical, adj.1668–
- biographically, adv.?1719–
- biographist, n.a1661–
- biographize, v.1793–
- biography, n.1661–
- biography, v.1794–
- biographying, n.1858–
- biohacker, n.1988–
- biohacking, n.1992–
- biohazard, n.1965–
- biohazardous, adj.1973–
- bioherm, n.1928–
- biohermal, adj.1937–
- bioidentical, adj.1998–
- bioimaging, n.1983–
Root of the Week: BIO (Monday)
- Charlotte O'Connell
- Feb 3
- 1 min read
Biography, Biographer, Autobiography (Noun)
The word biography is formed by connecting the Greek root “bio” with another Greek root, “graph” (which means "writing.") A biography is the written account of a person’s life, though of course biographies can also take other forms.
To cite this article click here for a list acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions at Wiktionary is accessible to researchers here:
short for biography, attested from 1946 (in phrase bio-pic) but OED cites a use in a 1925 private letter (published 1975) from Irish playwright Sean O'Casey.