Noun

Singular biography

Plural biographies

biography (plural biographies)

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

   There are many biographies of Benjamin Franklin.

Related terms

• autobiography
• biographer
• biographical
• hagiography
• pathography

Verb

Infinitive to biography

Third person singular biographies

Simple past biographied

Past participle biographied

Present participle biographying

to biography (third-person singular simple present biographies, present participle biographying, simple past and past participle biographied)

1. (transitive) To write a biography of.

A biography is a description or account of someone's life and the times, which is usually published in the form of a book or an essay, or in some other form, such as a film. An autobiography (auto meaning "self," giving "self-biography") is a biography of a person's life written or told by that same person. A biography is more than a list of impersonal facts (education, work, relationships, and death), it also portrays the subject's experience of those events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents the subject's story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life, including intimate details of experiences, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.

A work is biographical if it covers all of a person's life. As such, biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Together, all biographical works form the genre known as biography, in literature, film, and other forms of media.

Biography (from the Greek words bios meaning "life", and graphein meaning "write") is a genre of literature and other forms of media such as film, based on the written accounts of individual lives. While a biography may focus on a subject of fiction or non-fiction, the term is usually in reference to non-fiction.

Unsourced

• Biography, especially the biography of the great and good, who have risen by their own exertions from poverty and obscurity to eminence and usefulness, is an inspiring and ennobling study. Its direct tendency is to reproduce the excellence it records.
  • Horace Mann

• The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to others.
  • Samuel Smiles

• To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.
  • Plutarch

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