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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.

Keep Reading on Vocabulary.com

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:

“I was never looking to her thinking that this was autobiography or anything,” she says.

From Los Angeles Times Aug. 12, 2026

In his 2012 autobiography "An American Son," the man oft-memed as the "viceroy" of Cuba, recounts boasting to his exiled Cuban grandfather that he would one day overthrow Fidel Castro and free Cuba.

From Barron's Jul. 29, 2026

Instead, her autobiography hides the real Spark in a tangle of commonplaces.

From The Wall Street Journal Jul. 17, 2026

Famous Boston fund manager Jeremy Grantham recalled in his autobiography one of his first forays into stock picking as a young man.

From MarketWatch Jul. 15, 2026

This autobiography, moreover, is a book about language.

From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez

So I love to look for vegan books, nutrition books, rock biographies and autobiographies.

From Los Angeles Times Apr. 24, 2026

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

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

From Salon Nov. 10, 2024

Scotusblog, a website devoted to covering the Supreme Court, in 2012 posted a list of 353 books written or edited by justices since 1776, from autobiographies and poetry to legal theory and ruminations on war.

From New York Times Jul. 27, 2023

Pamphlets of verse by negro poets, autobiographies of colored orators.

From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead

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