biography.

An account of a person’s life written by someone else.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• historical biography
• write a biography

On the page

The biography distinguished documented events from later recollections.

The historian revised the biography after new correspondence became available.

Usage notes

Primary category: literary / elevated general. Forms: Singular biography; plural biographies. Also uncountable for the literary form. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: artistic orientation, figurative interpretation, life writing, narrative knowledge. Disciplines: literary writing, literary analysis, advanced general English. Commonness: moderately common.