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[ bahy- og -r uh -fee , bee- ]

the biography of Byron by Marchand.

  • an account in biographical form of an organization, society, theater, animal, etc.
  • such writings collectively.
  • the writing of biography as an occupation or field of endeavor.

/ baɪˈɒɡrəfɪ; ˌbaɪəˈɡræfɪkəl /

  • an account of a person's life by another
  • such accounts collectively
  • The story of someone's life. The Life of Samuel Johnson , by James Boswell , and Abraham Lincoln , by Carl Sandburg , are two noted biographies. The story of the writer's own life is an autobiography .

Discover More

Derived forms.

  • biˈographer , noun
  • biographical , adjective
  • ˌbioˈgraphically , adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of biography 1

Example Sentences

Barrett didn’t say anything on Tuesday to contradict our understanding of her ideological leanings based on her past rulings, past statements and biography.

Republicans, meanwhile, focused mostly on her biography — including her role as a working mother of seven and her Catholic faith — and her credentials, while offering few specifics about her record as a law professor and judge.

She delivered an inspiring biography at one point, reflecting on the sacrifice her mother made to emigrate to the United States.

As Walter Isaacson pointed out in his biography of Benjamin Franklin, Franklin proposed the postal system as a vital network to bond together the 13 disparate colonies.

Serving that end, the book is not an in-depth biography as much as a summary of Galileo’s life and science, plus a thorough recounting of the events leading up to his famous trial.

The Amazon biography for an author named Papa Faal mentions both Gambia and lists a military record that matches the FBI report.

For those unfamiliar with Michals, an annotated biography and useful essays are included.

Did you envision your Pryor biography as extending your previous investigation—aesthetically and historically?

But Stephen Kotkin's new biography reveals a learned despot who acted cunningly to take advantage of the times.

Watching novelists insult one another is one of the primary pleasures of his biography.

He also published two volumes of American Biography, a work which his death abridged.

Mme. de Chaulieu gave her husband the three children designated in the duc's biography.

The biography of great men always has been, and always will be read with interest and profit.

I like biography far better than fiction myself: fiction is too free.

The Bookman: "A more entertaining narrative whether in biography or fiction has not appeared in recent years."

Related Words

  • autobiography
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Definition of biography noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

  • Boswell’s biography of Johnson
  • a biography by Antonia Fraser
  • The book gives potted biographies of all the major painters.
  • blockbuster
  • unauthorized
  • biography by
  • biography of

Want to learn more?

Find out which words work together and produce more natural-sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app. Try it for free as part of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.

biography meaning

Other results

  • The Dictionary of National Biography
  • Dictionary of National Biography

Nearby words

Cambridge Dictionary

  • Cambridge Dictionary +Plus

Definition of biography – Learner’s Dictionary

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  • biographical

(Definition of biography from the Cambridge Learner's Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Translations of biography

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biography meaning

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COMMENTS

  1. BIOGRAPHY

    B1. the life story of a person written by someone else: He wrote a biography of Winston Churchill. Compare. autobiography. life history. life story. Fewer examples. This biography offers a few glimpses of his life before he became famous. Her biography revealed that she was not as rich as everyone thought. The biography was a bit of a rush job.

  2. BIOGRAPHY

    B1. the life story of a person written by someone else: He wrote a biography of Winston Churchill. Compare. autobiography. life history. life story. Fewer examples. This biography offers a few glimpses of his life before he became famous. Her biography revealed that she was not as rich as everyone thought. The biography was a bit of a rush job.

  3. Biography

    A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events.

  4. BIOGRAPHY Definition & Meaning

    Biography definition: a written account of another person's life. See examples of BIOGRAPHY used in a sentence.

  5. Biography

    biography, form of literature, commonly considered nonfictional, the subject of which is the life of an individual. One of the oldest forms of literary expression, it seeks to re-create in words the life of a human being—as understood from the historical or personal perspective of the author—by drawing upon all available evidence, including ...

  6. biography noun

    the story of a person’s life written by somebody else; this type of writing. The book gives potted biographies of all the major painters. Definition of biography noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.

  7. Biography

    A biography is an account of somebody's life written by somebody else, complete with details of the most important parts. These days, anyone, of any age, can be the subject of a biography: Justin Bieber, at the tender age of 17, had one written about his life.

  8. BIOGRAPHY

    Definition of biography – Learner’s Dictionary. biography. noun [ C ] uk / baɪˈɒɡrəfi / us. Add to word list. B1. the story of a person's life written by another person. biographical. adjective uk / ˌbaɪəʊˈɡræfɪkəl / us. about someone's life: biographical information.