biographer
[bahy-og-ruh-fer, bee-]
- a writer of someone's biography.
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Origin of biographer
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
producercreatorwritercolumnistjournalistcomposerpoetreporterbiographercorrespondentauthorcriticnovelistdramatisteditoressayistscreenwriterscholarartistphilosopherExamples from the Web for biographer
Contemporary Examples
But any biographer of the novel faces a problem more fundamental than compressing between two covers a vast and unwieldy subject.
Biographer Andrew Roberts argues that history has maligned Napoleon by lumping him in with totalitarian thugs.
“I had to lie on a huge, fur rug and have a nightmare,” Prince Charles told his biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby.
Biographer Jane Ridley has written of Edward VII, “He spied on Bertie, he whipped him, he treated him as a patient.”
“It was the first biography that made me want to become a biographer,” Spitz said.
Historical Examples
He wrote for humanity, as his biographer justly says, not for fame.
The Works of Whittier, Volume VI (of VII)John Greenleaf Whittier
So early had Boswell made his resolve to be the biographer of Johnson.
James BoswellWilliam Keith Leask
Dignity and respectability have ruined alike the historian and the biographer.
James BoswellWilliam Keith Leask
They are worthy of the biographer who has now well grouped and described these creatures.
Criminal ManGina Lombroso-Ferrero
Horace Traubel will be remembered, as he wished to be remembered, as the biographer of Whitman.
PipefulsChristopher Morley
Word Origin and History for biographer
n.
1715; see biography + -er (1). Earlier was biographist (1660s).
Of every great and eminent character, part breaks forth into public view, and part lies hid in domestic privacy. Those qualities which have been exerted in any known and lasting performances may, at any distance of time, be traced and estimated; but silent excellencies are soon forgotten; and those minute peculiarities which discriminate every man from all others, if the are not recorded by those whom personal knowledge enabled to observe them, are irrecoverably lost. [Johnson, "Life of Sir Thomas Browne," 1756]
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper