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Synonyms

autobiography

American  
[aw-tuh-bahy-og-ruh-fee, -bee-, aw-toh-] / ˌɔ tə baɪˈɒg rə fi, -bi-, ˌɔ toʊ- /

noun

  • autobiographies
    plural
  1. a history of a person's life written or told by that person.


autobiography British  
/ ˌɔːtəʊbaɪˈɒɡrəfɪ, ˌɔːtəbaɪ- /

noun

  1. an account of a person's life written or otherwise recorded by that person

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

autobiography Cultural  
  1. A literary work about the writer's own life. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa are autobiographical.


Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns


Etymology

Origin of autobiography

First recorded in 1790–1800; auto- 1 + biography


Explanation

You are writing an autobiography when you write your own life story. A writer who writes an autobiography is like a painter who paints a self-portrait. If you intend to write your autobiography one day, it might be a good idea to start recording notes about your life in a diary. The author Gertrude Stein was being clever when she poked fun at the very idea of autobiography when she wrote her own memoirs but titled them The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, instead of The Autobiography of Gertrude Stein.

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Vocabulary lists containing autobiography

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

In her autobiography, to be published in early 2027, she says she was a "rebellious little girl", determined to show that people did not need "the right name" to succeed.

From Barron's ● Oct. 29, 2026

He co-authored an autobiography, released in 2004, titled “Fred Claire: My 30 Years in Dodger Blue.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026

I would photograph each object and write down the story behind it, like a mini autobiography: why I kept it, what it says about who I was at the time.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 29, 2026

As Emma Raducanu plots a route back to the pinnacle of tennis, the Briton has been taking inspiration from Andre Agassi's 2009 autobiography.

From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026

Today I’m working on Miss Gordon’s autobiography project.

From "Out of My Mind" by Sharon M. Draper

The book’s leading actors have been subjects of biographies and autobiographies, and most events have been exhaustively covered in scholarly and popular histories and articles as well as media reports.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 16, 2025

“The projections mirror and amplify that as part of the visual vocabulary, whether that’s Douglass’ newspaper articles or autobiographies, or the text of the Emancipation Proclamation.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 16, 2025

Chapter 9 is about Frederick Douglass and identity-aware liberalism, as expressed through his autobiographies.

From Salon ● Nov. 10, 2024

Considering Angelou’s autobiographies — particularly, “Gather Together in My Name” — you can see why Myron Goble’s script about the power of family appealed to her.

From New York Times ● Dec. 26, 2023

In their autobiographies, they recounted great races in intimate detail, but falls and injuries were glossed over with the most perfunctory language.

From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand

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