Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio
(Definition of autobiography from the Cambridge Learner's Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)
Get a quick, free translation!
Word of the Day
microbusiness
a very small company, especially a family-owned company employing only a few people
Fakes and forgeries (Things that are not what they seem to be)
To add autobiography to a word list please sign up or log in.
Add autobiography to one of your lists below, or create a new one.
{{message}}
Something went wrong.
There was a problem sending your report.
Types of autobiography.
Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
autobiography , the biography of oneself narrated by oneself. Autobiographical works can take many forms, from the intimate writings made during life that were not necessarily intended for publication (including letters, diaries , journals , memoirs , and reminiscences) to a formal book-length autobiography.
Formal autobiographies offer a special kind of biographical truth: a life, reshaped by recollection, with all of recollection’s conscious and unconscious omissions and distortions. The novelist Graham Greene said that, for this reason, an autobiography is only “a sort of life” and used the phrase as the title for his own autobiography (1971).
There are but few and scattered examples of autobiographical literature in antiquity and the Middle Ages. In the 2nd century bce the Chinese classical historian Sima Qian included a brief account of himself in the Shiji (“Historical Records”). It may be stretching a point to include, from the 1st century bce , the letters of Cicero (or, in the early Christian era, the letters of Saint Paul ), and Julius Caesar ’s Commentaries tell little about Caesar, though they present a masterly picture of the conquest of Gaul and the operations of the Roman military machine at its most efficient. But Saint Augustine ’s Confessions , written about 400 ce , stands out as unique: though Augustine put Christianity at the centre of his narrative and considered his description of his own life to be merely incidental, he produced a powerful personal account, stretching from youth to adulthood, of his religious conversion.
Confessions has much in common with what came to be known as autobiography in its modern, Western sense, which can be considered to have emerged in Europe during the Renaissance , in the 15th century. One of the first examples was produced in England by Margery Kempe , a religious mystic of Norfolk. In her old age Kempe dictated an account of her bustling, far-faring life, which, however concerned with religious experience, reveals her personality. One of the first full-scale formal autobiographies was written a generation later by a celebrated humanist publicist of the age, Enea Silvio Piccolomini, after he was elevated to the papacy, in 1458, as Pius II . In the first book of his autobiography—misleadingly named Commentarii , in evident imitation of Caesar—Pius II traces his career up to becoming pope; the succeeding 11 books (and a fragment of a 12th, which breaks off a few months before his death in 1464) present a panorama of the age.
The autobiography of the Italian physician and astrologer Gironimo Cardano and the adventures of the goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini in Italy of the 16th century; the uninhibited autobiography of the English historian and diplomat Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in the early 17th; and Colley Cibber ’s Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian in the early 18th—these are representative examples of biographical literature from the Renaissance to the Age of Enlightenment. The latter period itself produced three works that are especially notable for their very different reflections of the spirit of the times as well as of the personalities of their authors: the urbane autobiography of Edward Gibbon , the great historian; the plainspoken, vigorous success story of an American who possessed all talents, Benjamin Franklin ; and the introspection of a revolutionary Swiss-born political and social theorist, the Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau —the latter leading to two autobiographical explorations in poetry during the Romantic period in England, William Wordsworth ’s Prelude and Lord Byron ’s Childe Harold , cantos III and IV.
An autobiography may be placed into one of four very broad types: thematic, religious, intellectual , and fictionalized. The first grouping includes books with such diverse purposes as The Americanization of Edward Bok (1920) and Adolf Hitler ’s Mein Kampf (1925, 1927). Religious autobiography claims a number of great works, ranging from Augustine and Kempe to the autobiographical chapters of Thomas Carlyle ’s Sartor Resartus and John Henry Cardinal Newman ’s Apologia in the 19th century. That century and the early 20th saw the creation of several intellectual autobiographies, including the severely analytical Autobiography of the philosopher John Stuart Mill and The Education of Henry Adams . Finally, somewhat analogous to the novel as biography is the autobiography thinly disguised as, or transformed into, the novel. This group includes such works as Samuel Butler ’s The Way of All Flesh (1903), James Joyce ’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), George Santayana ’s The Last Puritan (1935), and the novels of Thomas Wolfe . Yet in all of these works can be detected elements of all four types; the most outstanding autobiographies often ride roughshod over these distinctions.
Autobiography example sentences, autobiography.
1. Title of David Horowitz"s autobiography , in which he shows that a
2. She laughed at the autobiography he had concocted for Kazowskis, and repeated her amazement at his ability to construct plausible stories on short notice
3. in his autobiography , that initially, when sex energy is retained, the
4. him in my autobiography but I was not able to find out whether or not he would be pleased to see this small detail of his life in print
5. Beijing, he gave a copy of his autobiography to the guide, a lady who looked young and open minded, promising her, with the best of intentions, that he would write an article about his visit to China
6. autobiography , Soros on Soros, is told again and again that the main premise of his
7. Putting aside his seductive and well-written autobiography (Soros on Soros), we must look at his actions
8. In his post-war autobiography General Schwarzkopf paid tribute to the military forces of the international Persian Gulf coalition, and the success achieved by “all of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard and reserves who took part in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm” (Schwarzkopf, p
9. (The autobiography of a yogi, 1946)
10. In the jail, he spent his time writing his autobiography
11. In the introduction to his autobiography Gāndhiji writes that this ‘title has deeply pained me’ because:
12. There is also a provision to read Gāndhi books online including his Autobiography and more
13. “A Sailor's Tales” is an autobiography tracing the twists and turns in the life
14. In Michael Caine’s autobiography he writes about his theatrical initiation with the irascible Alwyn D
15. In his autobiography , David Hockney reckons he said something like that in a life drawing class at the RA during those years, so it might have been him… but then again it might not
16. Autograph collectors wave magazines with interviews or even copies of your brief autobiography
17. hacker type," recalls Torvalds in his 2001 autobiography Just for Fun
18. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley gives readers
19. You can read more on Anderson in her autobiography and in the 2009 book by Raymond Arsenault, The Sound Of Freedom: Marian Anderson, The Lincoln Memorial, And The Concert That Awakened America
20. “She’s trying to piss us off with her autobiography !” the woman said, leaning over the table
21. Proctor wrote in his autobiography that he was raised in Norfolk’s Huntersville neighborhood
22. In his autobiography , Proctor expressed gratitude to Sparks Melton, the liberal white pastor who arranged a full scholarship to a liberal white seminary
23. Proctor’s high moral standards were evident in his autobiography and in Rev
24. From Samuel Proctor’s autobiography , The Substance of Things Hoped For, I conclude that he grew up in the black middle class
25. In his autobiography , therefore, Proctor provided evidence that he aspired to achieve the higher, second stratum that he called the “heirs of the missions schools
26. You can find more information about the Boggs in her 1998 book, Living For Change: An Autobiography
27. Leakey’s 1983 book, One Life: An Autobiography , though thirty years old, delves somewhat into how it was done and highlights some of his health issues
28. I learned by writing my autobiography for Chapter 1, with the
29. This is an historic autobiography of a knucklehead growing up in the 50’s and 60’s
30. Searching in a drawer of her work desk, Ingrid took out an extra copy of the book Bateman held, plus a copy of her autobiography as a fighter pilot
31. For many of us, it is our own autobiography in verse
32. ” < From The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Little, Brown and Co
33. He’s busy writing his autobiography and feels confident that it will make record sales
34. Ghost writing is where a book, usually an autobiography , comes out in a
35. ‘Wow,’ I said, ‘plenty to choose from here for an autobiography
36. Autobiography Project, Third Meeting
37. press is clearly stated even in the Fifth Dalai Lama’s autobiography
38. later autobiography , referring to him in passing only as his Junior
39. 126 His earlier autobiography
40. Lama claims in his most recent autobiography that just before the
41. parts of an autobiography that are a witness of God's power
42. Save that for your autobiography
43. Fortunately he was so much absorbed in autobiography that he didn't notice
44. Churchill and Roosevelt in his autobiography ?
45. exhilarating,”(18) he says in his autobiography
46. days,”(20) he also says in his autobiography
47. autobiography , because he was a small child detached from his parents
48. * I have based all the Dalai Lama’s biography of this chapter on his autobiography
49. the adventure that lay ahead was very thrilling,”(5) he says in his autobiography
50. he left the palace, as he says in his autobiography
51. A man who becomes totally silent loses boundaries, loses definitions, loses autobiography
52. [14] Frederick Douglass in his autobiography writes about the same sort of phenomenon that occurred in the slave owner
53. Oh no, I hear you cry, dear reader, not another celebrity autobiography , replete with tales of a
54. When would you have time to write an autobiography
55. I had read Lord Byron's autobiography and I felt privileged to hear the famous man tell
56. it not been for the fact that I had a love of autobiography film documentations, I probably
57. Rose’s new relationship with Saint Coletta developed at the same time that she was collaborating with ghostwriter Robert Coughlan on her autobiography , Times to Remember
58. In her enormously self-serving and revisionist autobiography , she asserted that she agreed to make the film only after Hitler promised to keep Goebbels at bay
59. My discussion of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will is based on Trimborn, Bach, and Brendon, cited above, but also in part on Riefenstahl’s own autobiography , Leni Riefenstahl: A Memoir (New York: St
60. (The first public person to come out in a big way with bipolar disorder was actress Patty Duke, in her 1987 autobiography and in a bold 1992 book just about her experience with the illness
61. It was a gift that seriously perplexed me once I was old enough to read Mingus’s autobiography , Beneath the Underdog
62. But passages of his autobiography portray an angry and disillusioned man
63. Marshall, Autobiography ,” The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2005, Nobelprize
64. Dorothea was led on to this bit of autobiography without any sense of making a revelation
65. I remember that when I’d read Bill Clinton’s autobiography , I couldn’t help thinking that when he was confessing to the hurt he’d caused his wife and daughter, he couldn’t seem to resist looking for forgiveness too, and even hugs from the reader
66. She also enjoyed both volumes of The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens
67. But in her autobiography , By Myself, Bacall wrote about how irritating it was with Marilyn, prompted by Natasha Lytess sitting just off camera, calling for take after take, “often as many as 15 or more
68. He reveals in his 1983 autobiography , Confessions of an Actor, that preparatory to beginning production on the movie, he was convinced he was going to fall in love with Marilyn
69. He points out in his autobiography , Time-bends, that he wrote the screenplay as a gift to her and as she read an early draft she would “laugh delightfully at some of the cowboys’ lines but seemed to withhold full commitment to playing Roslyn
70. I also referred to his autobiography , written with Ms
71. Guilaroff’s five decades in the motion picture business and intimate friendships with the biggest stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age made his memoirs the most eagerly awaited autobiography of its kind
72. But this is not to be a regular autobiography
73. "" Baruch responded in his autobiography ,
74. In fact, if a romantic lady should chance to come across my autobiography she woidd ■certainly turn up her nose
75. You could never have employed your leisure time more profitably, my ever precious Arkady Makarovitch, than in writing this autobiography ! You have given yourself, so to say, an unflinching account of your first stormy, perilous steps on the path of life
76. " But such an autobiography as yoiu-s might serve as material for a future work of art, for a future picture of a lawless epoch already passed
77. " The poor woman who had fallen into his hands found much that was obscure, especially when his autobiography almost passed into a complete dissertation on the fact that no one had been ever able to understand Stepan Trofimovitch, and that "men of genius are wasted in Russia
78. I will observe, in parenthesis, that Heine says that a true autobiography is almost an impossibility, and that man is bound to lie about himself
"autobiography" definitions.
a biography of yourself
Definition of Biography
a person’s life story as told by another person
Examples of Biography in a sentence
It took me years to shape the president’s life story into an engaging biography. 🔊
Since the actress never asked you to write about her rise to stardom, your book isn’t an authorized biography. 🔊
The popular author will recount the singer’s upbringing in a biography. 🔊
In order for the writer to pen my biography, he’ll need to ask me numerous questions about my life. 🔊
Using my grandmother’s diaries, I was able to mesh her stories into a biography. 🔊
Most Searched Words (with Video)
Advertisement
Supported by
Word of the day
This word has appeared in 143 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
By The Learning Network
1. having or expressing dignity, the quality of being worthy of esteem or respect, especially formality or stateliness in bearing or appearance 2. having or showing self-esteem
The word dignified has appeared in 143 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on April 2 in “ Japan’s New Royal Instagram Page Forgoes Flash for Formality ” by Kiuko Notoya and Mike Ives:
Anyone expecting the Japanese royal family’s new Instagram account to generate memes or showcase a new side of the world’s oldest continuous monarchy should lower their expectations. There is nothing flashy to see here, people. No behind-the-scenes levity or spontaneity. Just some royals politely posing for pictures in their usual, formal way. … Other people in Japan praised the page, saying that it made the royal family look dignified . “When I look at the smiling faces of their majesties the Emperor and Empress and Princess Aiko and their beautiful demeanor, I can feel my back straighten,” Mika Ahn, a television personality, said on Tuesday during a talk show on the channel Nippon TV.
Can you correctly use the word dignified in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
If you want a better idea of how dignified can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com . You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.
If you enjoy this daily challenge, try our vocabulary quizzes .
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com . Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary . See every Word of the Day in this column .
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
The meaning of AUTOBIOGRAPHY is the biography of a person narrated by that person : a usually written account of a person's life in their own words. How to use autobiography in a sentence.
'Autobiography' in a sentence: I read her autobiography last year. While Robertson's autobiography doesn't go into the specifics of their breakup, which has been a point of conjecture for decades, much of the book centers on the friendship that made the band's bitter ending that much more heartbreaking. — Anna Tingley, Variety, 10 Aug. 2023
Kurakin was one of the best-educated Russians of his day, and his autobiography, carried down to 1709, is an historical document of the first importance. 2. 1. Jehangir tells us in his autobiography that before his father Akbar built the present fort, the town was defended by a citadel of great antiquity. 2.
Use Correct Punctuation: Place the title of the autobiography in italics or quotes, following the appropriate punctuation rules. Proper Grammar: Ensure that your sentence is grammatically correct and clearly conveys the intended meaning. Example: In her autobiography, "Becoming," Michelle Obama shares her journey from a young girl in ...
Examples of AUTOBIOGRAPHY in a sentence, how to use it. 98 examples: Critics often applaud rock autobiographies that go at least partially ' against…
AUTOBIOGRAPHY definition: 1. a book about a person's life, written by that person: 2. the area of literature relating to…. Learn more.
Autobiography definition: a history of a person's life written or told by that person.. See examples of AUTOBIOGRAPHY used in a sentence.
Autobiography Definition, Examples, and Writing Guide. As a firsthand account of the author's own life, an autobiography offers readers an unmatched level of intimacy. Learn how to write your first autobiography with examples from MasterClass instructors.
Autobiography: A personal account that a person writes himself/herself. Memoir: An account of one's memory. Reflective Essay: One's thoughts about something. Confession: An account of one's wrong or right doings. Monologue: An address of one's thoughts to some audience or interlocuters. Biography: An account of the life of other persons ...
Definition of autobiography noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.
An autobiography (awe-tow-bye-AWE-gruh-fee) is a self-written biography. The author writes about all or a portion of their own life to share their experience, frame it in a larger cultural or historical context, and/or inform and entertain the reader. Autobiographies have been a popular literary genre for centuries.
autobiography: 1 n a biography of yourself Types: memoir an account of the author's personal experiences Type of: biography , life , life history , life story an account of the series of events making up a person's life
Definition of Autobiography. the story of an individual's life written by that individual. Examples of Autobiography in a sentence. To learn about the deceased celebrity, you should read the autobiography he wrote about his life. It was interesting to listen to the actress share a memory she had included in her autobiography.
The term fictional autobiography (or pseudoautobiography) refers to novels that employ first-person narrators who recount the events of their lives as if they actually happened. Well-known examples include David Copperfield (1850) by Charles Dickens and Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Some critics believe that all autobiographies are ...
4. Include plenty of detail. In case we haven't drilled down on this enough, let's reiterate once more: an autobiography should be a complete overview of your life from beginning to end. That means that as you get into properly writing it, you should include as much detail as you can remember.
The word autobiography literally means SELF (auto), LIFE (bio), WRITING (graph). Or, in other words, an autobiography is the story of someone's life written or otherwise told by that person. When writing your autobiography, find out what makes your family or your experience unique and build a narrative around that.
Sentence Examples. As you would expect from a historian of Molony's distinction, his autobiography is written chastely, elegantly, self-critically and charitably. While going through such varied sources, it is a great joy when one finds an autobiography or a biography or an unpublished piece of writing.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY definition: a book written by someone about their own life. Learn more.
autobiography, the biography of oneself narrated by oneself. Autobiographical works can take many forms, from the intimate writings made during life that were not necessarily intended for publication (including letters, diaries, journals, memoirs, and reminiscences) to a formal book-length autobiography. Formal autobiographies offer a special ...
autobiography example sentences. autobiography. 1. Title of David Horowitz"s autobiography, in which he shows that a. 2. She laughed at the autobiography he had concocted for Kazowskis, and repeated her amazement at his ability to construct plausible stories on short notice. 3. in his autobiography, that initially, when sex energy is retained, the.
134+3 sentence examples: 1. In her autobiography she occasionally refers to her unhappy schooldays. 2. She has just written her autobiography. 3. The novel is a thinly disguised autobiography. 4. They published an extract from his autobiography. 5.
Definition of Biography. a person's life story as told by another person. Examples of Biography in a sentence. It took me years to shape the president's life story into an engaging biography. 🔊. Since the actress never asked you to write about her rise to stardom, your book isn't an authorized biography. 🔊. The popular author will ...
dignified \ ˌdɪgnəˈfaɪd \ adjective. 1. having or expressing dignity, the quality of being worthy of esteem or respect, especially formality or stateliness in bearing or appearance