Meaning & use
biography
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Meanings
nouncountable
A book or other work that tells the story of a real person's life, written by someone else.
Grammar: Countable: a biography of someone.
Patterns
- a biography of someone
- a biography by someone
She wrote a biography of the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.
I borrowed a biography of Abraham Lincoln from the library.
The new biography draws on letters that had never been published.
noununcountable
Biographies as a type of writing, or the telling of life stories as a subject.
Grammar: Uncountable when naming a genre: he reads a lot of biography.
Patterns
- read biography
- a work of biography
Her shelves are full of history and biography.
Biography became more popular after the war.
He teaches courses in biography and memoir.
nouncountable
The course of events in a person's life.
Grammar: Often with a possessive: the artist's biography.
Patterns
- someone's biography
The painter's biography is marked by poverty and travel.
Her biography explains why she chose to study medicine.
His own biography reads like an adventure novel.
Word forms
| plural | biographies |
|---|
Common combinations
- write a biography
- She spent five years researching to write a biography of the poet.
- official biography
- The official biography was approved by the family.
- definitive biography
- Critics called it the definitive biography of Marie Curie.
- short biography
- The program includes a short biography of each performer.
- biography of
- A biography of the mayor was released this fall.
Synonyms and how they differ
- life story
- Life story is plain and informal, while biography implies research and a book-length or formal account.
- memoir
- A memoir is written by the person about their own memories, while a biography is written by someone else.
- profile
- A profile is a short sketch of a person, usually in a magazine, while a biography is much fuller.
- life
- Life, in titles such as The Life of Johnson, is an older word for a full biography.
Word family
- biographer noun
- a writer of biographies
- biographical adjective
- relating to someone's life story
- autobiography noun
- a life story written by the person themselves
- biopic noun
- a film about a real person's life
Commonly confused: biography or autobiography? biography or bibliography?
biography vs autobiography
An autobiography is written by the subject, whereas a biography is written by someone else.
biography vs bibliography
A bibliography is a list of books and sources, not a story of a life.
Practice
Which word describes a book about a famous scientist's life, written by a historian?
Choose one answer.
A biography is written by someone else about a person's life. An autobiography is written by the subject, a bibliography lists sources, and a glossary lists word meanings.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “biography”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.