biography
/bʌɪˈɒɡrəfi
/noun (plural biographies)
1An account of someone’s life written by someone else.Hey, there are people writing novels and biographies using pictures as well as words....
- Was it possible to write the bestselling biography to match the box-office hit?
- Drummund, who was also a biographer for Billy Graham, wrote an excellent biography on Finney which deals with this.
Synonyms
life story, life history, life, memoir, profile, account
informal bio, biog
rare prosopography
1.1 [mass noun] Biographies considered as a literary genre: the basic difference of approach to autobiography and biography...
- Over the past 27 years, Norman Sherry has been pioneering a new literary genre: biography as ordeal.
- By taking on these sympathetic forms, literary biography can supply parallel narratives to those of novels.
- It is closer to literary Criticism, than biography but without ever being boring.
1.2The course of a person’s life: although their individual biographies are different, both are motivated by a similar ambition...
- It exposes the paradox that Plath's texts cannot be read through biography and cannot be read apart from it.
- Some knowledge of Shapiro's biography is open to any reader in the dedication.
- Over the centuries, Laozi's life took on elements of the mythological hero's biography.
Origin
Late 17th century: from French biographie or modern Latin biographia, from medieval Greek, from bios 'life' + -graphia 'writing'.