hagiography
Americannoun
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hagiographies
plural
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the writing and critical study of the lives of the saints; hagiology.
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a biography that treats the person with excessive or undue admiration.
noun
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the writing of the lives of the saints
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biography of the saints
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any biography that idealizes or idolizes its subject
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of hagiography
Explanation
A hagiography is a type of biography that puts the subject in a very flattering light. Hagiographies are often about saints. The two halves of hagiography refer to holiness and writing, and it is something written about holy people. Originally, a hagiography was a biography of a saint written without skepticism or criticism. A hagiography idealizes the subject and puts them on a pedestal. These days, a hagiography is not necessarily written about a saint, but it still idolizes the subject. A hagiography makes the subject seem like a hero, or at least a wonderful, nearly perfect person.
Vocabulary lists containing hagiography
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Ten Words from The New York Times - June 12, 2013
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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.
See Examples For:
At times the author goes beyond the biographer’s requisite sympathetic engagement and enters the realm of hagiography.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
It is an exhausting hagiography of yet another man who had an affair while in office.
From Slate ● Feb. 25, 2026
In this sense, hagiography is not simply about remembering the dead: It mobilizes the living.
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2025
It is not a hagiography but a raw account of a mother-daughter bond she calls "a respectful relationship between two nuclear powers. Which is OK, keep it cool".
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2025
One would need to know a good deal regarding local and popular hagiography in order to see to what degree the selections are appropriate.
From A Little Book of Filipino Riddles by Frederick Starr
She examined frescoes, illuminated manuscripts, hagiographies, and letters, uncovering materials that had been misdated or wrongly attributed.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 2, 2026
The reason Wikipedia articles aren’t hagiographies is because they’re not supposed to be.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2025
But American audiences still tend to be fed documentaries of only a few types: true crime stories, cult exposés, hagiographies, and educational disquisitions full of talking heads.
From New York Times ● Jan. 28, 2024
They can range from Kitty Kelly’s unauthorized assessments of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Reagan to countless hagiographies in which the subject has final say over the manuscript.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 31, 2021
And, when we take it in conjunction with the authorised diffusion of the Benedictine hagiographies of the time, we see what was approved placed by the side of that which was mistrusted.
From Anglo-Saxon Literature by John Earle
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.
