biographer
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of biographer
First recorded in 1705–15; biograph(y) + -er 1
Explanation
A biographer is a writer who specializes in true stories of other people's lives. The finished books that biographers publish are called biographies. In some cases, well-known writers, actors, and other public figures work with biographers in order to collaborate on their own biographies. Other times, biographers research the lives of their subjects after they've died. In the 1660s, they were known as biographists. The root of all variations on biography is the Late Greek biographia, "description of life," from bio-, "life," and graphia, "record or account."
Vocabulary lists containing biographer
Words to Live By: Bio
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Roots: bio
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Roots: graph
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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.
“His forte is listening,” Cooke, the biographer, said of Lesch, whose polite, unassuming manner reflects an adult life spent mostly in San Antonio.
From Los Angeles Times • May 4, 2026
Callanan does two things every good biographer should: evoke the personality of the subject and situate him vividly in his environment.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026
"Any meeting with Asha has to be a talk show. She will do all the talking, of course, interrupting the flow of words only to sing," Bharatan, her biographer, wrote.
From BBC • Apr. 12, 2026
Paul was “one of the most gregarious playboys in New York City,” according to biographer Frank Brady, author of “The Publisher,” and Paul and William Randolph Hearst were regulars at New York nightclubs.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 5, 2026
It was also at odds with the facts, and with Oppenheimer’s own judgment as he relayed it a few years later to Lawrence’s biographer, Flerbert Childs.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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.
