biographyn.
/bʌɪˈɒɡrəfi/, U.S. /baɪˈɑɡrəfi/ 1. A written account of the life of an individual, esp. a historical or public figure; (also) a brief profile of a person's life or work. Later more generally: a themed narrative history of a specific subject in any of various written, recorded, or visual media.Sometimes with defining word, as critical biography, literary biography, political biography, etc. See also autobiography n., photo-biography n.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > biography > [noun]
lifeeOE
biography1661
life storya1680
memoir1810
bio1925
biog1929
1661 J. Fell Life T. Fuller 105 And so impertinent it will be to engage further in a particular account of his Books, whose sure and perpetual Duration needs not the Minutes of this Biography.
1663 J. Heath Flagellum 12 I was obliged to mention such particulars.., as due to this Memoir of him, which pretends to an exact Biography, as well in the minute and small beginnings, as in the grand and most important Events of his Life.
1726 J. Oldmixon Crit. Hist. Eng. II. v. 247 In the Biography of Dr. William Harvey, who discover'd the Circulation of the Blood, he informs us, the Doctor had written a Practice conformable to this Thesis.
c1791 J. Wolcot Bozzy & Piozzi (1812) 361 Bid her a poor biography suspend, Nor crucify through vanity a friend.
1814 J. Pinkerton Voy. XVII. Index Biography of Haller.
1848 A. Henfrey tr. M. J. Schleiden (title) The plant; a biography.
1883 J. O. Halliwell Outl. Life Shakespeare Pref. 12 John Aubrey..was the author of numerous little biographies.
1928 Amer. Mercury Oct. 207/2 The most eminent literary embalmer of the Church produced a biography of him.
1960 A. L. Rowse Diary 4 Nov. (2003) 334 The biography of Whitman I was reading before coming over spoke of him along with the supreme poets, Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe. Ludicrous to speak of this uneducated , untutored spirit along with them.
1999 P. Ball (title) H2O: a biography of water.
2004 Express (Nexis) 12 Mar. 55 The ultimate literary biography, in which one puffed-up writer lacerates the intolerable puffed-upness of another.
2. The process of recording the events and circumstances of another person's life, esp. for publication (latterly in any of various written, recorded, or visual media); the documenting of individual life histories (and, later, other forms of thematic historical narrative), considered as a genre of writing or social history.Sometimes with defining word, as critical biography, literary biography, political biography, etc. See also autobiography n., photo-biography n.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > biography > [noun] > biography as a branch of literature
biography1683
1671 J. Glanvill Præfatory Answer to Stubbe 211 If any man hath a design to write his Life, and further to describe this Sir Hudibras and his Steed; He will do well to hold his hand a while, For M. Stubbe's Friend M. Cross hath writ a Book call'd Biographia, which gives Rules, how Lives are to be writ.]
1683 J. Dryden Life Plutarch 96 in J. Dryden et al. tr. Plutarch Lives I In all parts of Biography..Plutarch equally excell'd.
1724 R. Fiddes Life Wolsey Introd. p. xv That Distinction or particular Branch of History, which is termed Biography.
1750 S. Johnson Rambler No. 60. ⁋11 The incidents which give excellence to biography are of a volatile and evanescent kind.
1803 W. Scott Let. in J. G. Lockhart Mem. Life Sir W. Scott (1837) I. xi. 374 Biography, the most interesting perhaps of every species of composition.
1852 North Amer. & U.S. Gaz. (Philadelphia) 16 Aug. 1/9 His work must be deemed an acceptable addition to the stock of American political biography.
1883 J. O. Halliwell Outl. Life Shakespeare Pref. 1 At the present day, with biography carried to a wasteful and ridiculous excess.
1909 Spectator 25 Dec. 1093/1 In poetry, history, biography, and even in Holy Writ, we continually find the page..drawing its light and meaning from the stated words of quite unknown speakers.
1947 J. Hayward Prose Lit. since 1939 26 Literary and historical biography was already a flourishing industry. What particular..forces were concerned in its mass-production cannot be investigated here.
1974 Times Lit. Suppl. 20 Dec. 1437/5 A reminder of how much royal legend is osmotically absorbed by even the most reluctant reader of royal biography.
2002 M. Holroyd Wks. on Paper 21 For a long time, biography was regarded as the poor relation of history—which, to put it tactfully, was unfair to both disciplines.
3. Personal history; the events or circumstances of a person's life, viewed collectively. Also: the course of an individual human life, or the life cycle of an animal or plant. Cf. life history n.
ΘΚΠ
society > communication > record > [noun] > a record > life or case history
lifeeOE
natural history1555
biography1806
antecedents1828
pedigree1852
case history1868
case study1914
1806 Port folio 26 Apr. 253/2 I am at a loss to say, whether I am more astonished at her sagacity, or delighted with her ingenuity. It is much to be regretted, that so little is known of her biography.
1807 W. Irving in Salmagundi 19 Sept. 298 Much as I reverence my illustrious ancestors, I find little to admire in their biography, except my cousin's excellent memory; which is most provokingly retentive of every uninteresting particular.
1849 H. Miller Foot-prints of Creator 279 In studying the biography, if I may so express myself, of an individual animal.
1883 J. O. Halliwell Outl. Life Shakespeare Pref. 8 The scanty records of the poet's biography that yet remain.
1918 E. Holloway in W. P. Trent et al. Hist. Amer. Lit. II. iii. i. 259 The facts of his biography which are well established or establishable.
1948 Jrnl. Nerv. & Mental Dis. 108 10 These physical attitudes, these motoric and glandular responses, constitute a language that records the earliest biography of the individual.
1981 Q. Rev. Biol. 56 395/2 As yet, no uniformity in the developmental biographies of paraphiliacs has been uncovered.
2002 Kindred Spirit Spring 97/3 This set covers chakras as the ‘data banks’ of your life; intuition—demystified and demythologised; the seven principles of retaining power; how your biography becomes your biology.
Compounds
General attributive and objective.
ΚΠ
1860 Sat. Rev. 9 301 If it had come from the hands of a regular biography-monger.
1903 W. D. Howells Lett. Home ix. 51 She looked awfully tired, for she had been writing out a long story, as she called it—a biography-interview with a new English lecturess who has just come ashore.
1911 J. W. Slaughter Adolescent i. 6 It is to be hoped that biography-makers will in the future..recognize the fact that biography is scientific as well as literary.
1958 Spectator 4 July 24/2 Mr. Wardle makes a point of dissociating himself from the laundry-list species of biography-making.
1985 A. Pred in D. Gregory & J. Urry Social Relations & Spatial Structures xiv. 345 Each of the villages was a distinctly becoming place where the details of biography-formation and everyday life varied somewhat.
2004 G. Marotzki in U. Flick et al. Compan. Qualitative Res. 170/1 We are constantly developing ourselves..in processes of biography-making.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
biographyv.
/bʌɪˈɒɡrəfi/, U.S. /baɪˈɑɡrəfi/ transitive. To write about the life of (a person, esp. a historical or public figure); to make (such a person) the subject of a biography or biographical profile. rare.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > biography > write biography of [verb (transitive)]
biograph1776
biographize1793
biography1794
Boswellize1837
1794 S. Whyte Coll. of Poems (new ed.) 24 Many a fop, with falsehood's spirit curs'd, Biographies her from the lap that nurs'd; Citing in proof, when, where and how, a list Of well-known facts that never could exist.
1812 Eccentric Mag. 1 23 His grace [sc. the Duke of Queensberry] has been biographied in so many Cyprian histories.
1858 T. Carlyle Hist. Friedrich II of Prussia II. x. ii. 579 Endless writing and biographying..about this man.
1915 Jrnl. Western Soc. Engineers 20 604 Anyone who knew Mr. Noble is restrained from eulogy [by] the disfavor with which he would view our biographying him.
2002 Where's me Old Buds? in alt.writing (Usenet newsgroup) 12 July Is la Butler busy biographying Frank Sinatra Junior?
Derivatives
biˈographied adj. (also absol.).
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > biography > [adjective] > made the subject of biography
biographied1844
1844 Fraser's Mag. 30 518/1 If..the biographied be of low birth.
1908 Fabian News 19 22/2 I cannot help a sneaking regret that G.B.S. has mounted above us into the regions of the biographied.
1954 Amer. Hist. Rev. 59 1023 Such examination has usually been devoted to the exploits of John Paul Jones, John Barry (two of the most biographied men in naval history), or Joshua Barney.
2002 Jrnl. Relig. in Afr. 32 442 Puzzles, playing cards, pageants, portraits and pottery all portrayed scenes from the book and from Bunyan's increasingly biographied life.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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