hagiography

[ hag-ee-og-ruh-fee, hey-jee- ]

/ ˌhæg iˈɒg rə fi, ˌheɪ dʒi- /

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noun, plural hag·i·og·ra·phies.

the writing and critical study of the lives of the saints; hagiology.

a biography that treats the person with excessive or undue admiration.

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Origin of hagiography

First recorded in 1805–15; hagio- + -graphy

OTHER WORDS FROM hagiography

hag·i·o·graph·ic

[hag-ee-uh-graf-ik, hey-jee-], /ˌhæg i əˈgræf ɪk, ˌheɪ dʒi-/, hag·i·o·graph·i·cal, adjective

Words nearby hagiography

Hagia Sophia, Cathedral of, hagio-, hagiocracy, Hagiographa, hagiographer, hagiography, hagiolatry, hagiology, hagioscope, Hagler, hagridden

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022

How to use hagiography in a sentence

This movie is not a hagiography, and it stops short of treating Larson like a genius.
The intertwined legacies of Jonathan Larson and Lin-Manuel Miranda|Constance Grady|November 19, 2021|Vox
Birdsall gives us a portrait of Beard that is neither a take-down nor hagiography.
James Beard biography a luscious feast|Kathi Wolfe|October 22, 2020|Washington Blade
She wants a “hagiography,” and the conflicts and confusions that ensue provide The Last Word with its comic momentum.
A Novel About a Novelist ‘Like’ Naipaul|Edward Platt|November 6, 2014|DAILY BEAST
We Could Be King is, of course, part of a larger emergent genre, that of the high school football hagiography.
Two New Films Preach Our Nation’s Corrosive Gridiron Gospel|Steve Almond|September 20, 2014|DAILY BEAST

Surfing on an ocean of media hagiography, Christie seemed unbeatable just when it was time for Democrats to declare themselves.
The Wrong Election Takeaways From Christie’s Win, Virginia, and More|Michael Tomasky|November 7, 2013|DAILY BEAST
And thank God, given the current glut of baseball hagiography on the market.
This Is What Baseball Looks Like in the Lowliest Minor Leagues|Nicholas Mancusi|May 19, 2013|DAILY BEAST
One has to be careful not to descend into a mess of hagiography.
David Foster Wallace, Traditionalist? Considering ‘Both Flesh and Not: Essays’|David Masciotra|November 2, 2012|DAILY BEAST
But the great and absorbing subject of poetry in this age is Hagiography.
Anglo-Saxon Literature|John Earle
Hagiography was now a lost branch of art, as completely lost as wood carving, and the miniatures of the old missals.
En Route|J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
The second version, though LB calls it miraculum insolitum, is one of the commonplaces of hagiography.
The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran|Anonymous
Space would now fail us to trace the development of hagiography in the Church.
The Contemporary Review, January 1883|Various
The hagiography of the Eastern and the Greek church also has been the subject of important publications.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 7|Various

British Dictionary definitions for hagiography

hagiography

/ (ˌhæɡɪˈɒɡrəfɪ) /

noun plural -phies

the writing of the lives of the saints

biography of the saints

any biography that idealizes or idolizes its subject

Derived forms of hagiography

hagiographic (ˌhæɡɪəˈɡræfɪk) or hagiographical, adjective

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