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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

biography.

A person's life story, especially one published.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/baɪˈɒɡɹəfi/Received-Pronunciation/baɪˈɑɡɹəfi/General-American

  1. A person's life story, especially one published.

    countable
    There are many biographies of Benjamin Franklin.

  2. The art of writing this kind of story.

    uncountable
    She is best known for biography and history, but she is also a novelist.
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʷeyh₃-der. Ancient Greek βίος (bíos) Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- Proto-Hellenic *grə́pʰō Ancient Greek γρᾰ́φω (grắphō) Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Hellenic *-ā́ Ancient Greek -ᾱ (-ā) Ancient Greek -η (-ē) Ancient Greek γραφή (graphḗ) Ancient Greek -γραφία (-graphía) Ancient Greek βιογραφίᾱ (biographíā)der. New Latin biographiabor. English biography Borrowed from New Latin biographia, from Ancient Greek βιογραφίᾱ (biographíā), from βίος (bíos, life) + -γραφία (-graphía, writing).

verb/baɪˈɒɡɹəfi/Received-Pronunciation/baɪˈɑɡɹəfi/General-American

  1. To write a biography of.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʷeyh₃-der. Ancient Greek βίος (bíos) Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- Proto-Hellenic *grə́pʰō Ancient Greek γρᾰ́φω (grắphō) Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Hellenic *-ā́ Ancient Greek -ᾱ (-ā) Ancient Greek -η (-ē) Ancient Greek γραφή (graphḗ) Ancient Greek -γραφία (-graphía) Ancient Greek βιογραφίᾱ (biographíā)der. New Latin biographiabor. English biography Borrowed from New Latin biographia, from Ancient Greek βιογραφίᾱ (biographíā), from βίος (bíos, life) + -γραφία (-graphía, writing).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.