autobiography
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of autobiography
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.
Vocabulary lists containing autobiography
Words to Live By: Bio
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Write On!: Graph and Gram
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To Thine Own Self Be True: Auto
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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.
Moviegoers should be careful not to read too much autobiography into an actor’s creative choices, but Jolie makes such speculation tantalizing, adding additional layers of drama to her films.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 26, 2026
After a few years, Greenspan became the firm’s principal owner and its president, according to his autobiography.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 22, 2026
The law was passed in 2023, 13 years after Chicago Public Schools, without explanation or warning, removed Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel autobiography “Persepolis” from classrooms and libraries, sparking a student movement against censorship.
From Salon • Jun. 20, 2026
In White’s 2016 autobiography, he acknowledged that some group members “counted me as an enemy because they believed that I was making a lot more money than I really was.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 18, 2026
When I decided to compose this intellectual autobiography, a New York editor told me that I would embark on a lonely journey.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
