diary

[dahy-uh-ree]

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noun, plural di·a·ries.

a daily record, usually private, especially of the writer's own experiences, observations, feelings, attitudes, etc.
a book for keeping such a record.
a book or pad containing pages marked and arranged in calendar order, in which to note appointments and the like.

Origin of diary

1575–85; < Latin diārium daily allowance, journal, equivalent to di(ēs) day + -ārium -ary

Can be confuseddairy diary

Synonyms for diary

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1, 2. journal, daybook, log, chronicle.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for diary

journal, notebook, account, log, record, daybook, minutes, agenda, chronicle

Examples from the Web for diary

Contemporary Examples of diary

She and her family arrived in Lebanon on Oct. 17, 2012, at 1:34 p.m.—she marked it in her diary.
Drawing on the Memories of Syrian Women
Masha Hamilton
November 26, 2014
Here, again, Angleton comes into the picture: In exchange for the diary, he promised Ben and Tony, he would destroy it.
The Bizarre Tale of Ben Bradlee, JFK, and the Master Spy
Will Rahn
October 22, 2014
In Berlin, Princess Blucher wrote in her diary, “Nothing is talked of but the expected entry into Paris.”
Barbara Tuchman’s ‘The Guns of August’ Is Still WWI’s Peerless Chronicle
James A. Warren
September 29, 2014
In July, as she published her latest book, Diary of a Mad Diva, she walked out of a CNN interview.
Joan Rivers: 'Death Is Like Plastic Surgery'
Tim Teeman
September 4, 2014
But on the day he died, she wrote a single word in her diary: paradeisos, the Greek word for paradise.
Crime of Fashion: Gucci Killer to Go Free
Barbie Latza Nadeau
May 16, 2014

Historical Examples of diary

From this point the progress will be best narrated by extracts from my Diary.
Explorations in Australia
John Forrest
It was a very serious thing for the elements when they got into Aunt Jane's diary.
Malbone
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
On the 9th Nelson sent Collingwood what he called, in his diary, the Nelson-touch.
The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson
Robert Southey
That page in her diary called out to her to come home and burn it.
The Incomplete Amorist
E. Nesbit
Her thoughts went back to what she had written in her diary.
The Incomplete Amorist
E. Nesbit

British Dictionary definitions for diary

diary

noun plural -ries

a personal record of daily events, appointments, observations, etc
a book for keeping such a record

Word Origin for diary

C16: from Latin diārium daily allocation of food or money, journal, from diēs day

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

Word Origin and History for diary

1580s, from Latin diarium "daily allowance," later "a journal," neuter of diarius "daily," from dies "day" (see diurnal); also see -ary. Earliest sense was a daily record of events; sense of the book in which such are written is said to be first attested in Ben Jonson's "Volpone" (1605).