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autobiography definition

auto·bi·og·ra·phy (-fē)

noun pl. autobiographies -·phies

  1. the art or practice of writing one's own biography
  2. the story of one's own life written or dictated by oneself

Etymology: auto- + biography: coined (1809) by Robert Southey

Related Forms:

Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2005 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

autobiography Synonyms

autobiography

n.

memoirs, personal history, self-portrayal, confession, life, experiences, account of oneself, adventures, biography, life story, journal, letters, fortunes, diary.


Webster's New World Roget's A-Z Thesaurus Copyright © 1999 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

autobiography Usage Examples

Preposition: of

  • man: Now here is the autobiography of this remarkable man, one of Britain's leading television and cabaret performers.

Converse of object

  • pen: Answer Bobby Hatfield 12 Who penned the autobiography Banana's Can't Fly?

Adjective modifier

  • best-selling: He subsequently co-wrote Bob Geldof's best-selling autobiography, Is That It?

Noun used with modifier

  • verse: Published in 1960, the poem was an immediate best seller and heralded as ' the verse autobiography of the century ' .
autobiography usage examples (more)

The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com.

autobiography quotes

An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last instalment missing.

-Crisp, Quentin

An autobiography is only 'a sort of life'öit may contain less errors of fact than a biography, but it is of necessity even more selective: it begins later and it ends prematurely.

-Greene, (Henry) Graham

The social scientist is in a difficult, if not impossible position.On the one hand there is the temptation to see all of societyas one's autobiography writ large, surely not the path to general truth.On the other hand, there is the attempt to be general and objective by pretending that one knows nothing about the experience of being human, forcing the investigator to pretend that people usually know and tell the truth about important issues, when we all know from our own lives how impossible that is.

-Lewontin, Richard Charles

autobiography quotes (more)

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2005 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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"autobiography." Webster's New World College Dictionary. 2009

  • Your Dictionary. 5 July 2009
  • <www.yourdictionary.com/autobiography>

APA Style

autobiography. (2009). In Webster's New World College Dictionary

  • Retrieved July 5th, 2009, from www.yourdictionary.com/autobiography

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