historian

[hi-stawr-ee-uh n, -stohr-]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR historian ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

an expert in history; authority on history.

a writer of history; chronicler.

Nearby words

Origin of historian

1400–50; late Middle English. See history, -an

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for historian

Historian Matthew Avery Sutton, however, wants you to think of something else: the End Times.
The Evangelical Apocalypse Is All Your Fault|Jay Michaelson|January 4, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Michael Kazin is a historian who has written a lot about the New Left.
Thank Congress, Not LBJ for Great Society|Julian Zelizer, Scott Porch|January 4, 2015|DAILY BEAST
But Winning Marriage will be essential for the historian who, someday, tries to tell the full story.
The Real Story Behind the Fight for Marriage Equality|E.J. Graff|December 30, 2014|DAILY BEAST
“Stop the presses,” splashes Jill Lepore, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer.
Wonder Woman’s Creation Story Is Wilder Than You Could Ever Imagine|Tom Arnold-Forster|November 3, 2014|DAILY BEAST

Historian David Fromkin summed up the mess that resulted in the title of his book The Peace to End All Peace.
Turkish President Declares Lawrence of Arabia a Bigger Enemy than ISIS|Jamie Dettmer|October 13, 2014|DAILY BEAST
But more important to the historian of literature even than the development of qualities is the evolution of types.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6|Various
The writer's rank, as a theologian to begin with, and subsequently as a historian of Greek philosophy, is of the highest.
Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions|Thomas H. Huxley
His intimacy with the historian Polybius has been already mentioned.
A Smaller History of Rome|William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
It is likely, too, that this book would have constituted his surest claim to high rank as an historian.
William Hickling Prescott|Harry Thurston Peck
A historian of this latter period asserts that the inhabitants are all either Methodists or Presbyterians.
The History of Louisville, from the Earliest Settlement till the Year 1852|Ben Casseday

British Dictionary definitions for historian

historian

noun

a person who writes or studies history, esp one who is an authority on it

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 historian

historian

mid-15c., from Middle French historien (14c.), from Latin historia (see history). As "writer of history in the higher sense" (distinguished from a mere annalist or chronicler), from 1530s. The Old English word was þeod-wita.

[T]he historian's fallacy is the error of assuming that a man who has a given historical experience knows it, when he has had it, to be all that a historian would know it to be, with the advantage of historical perspective. [David Hackett Fischer, "Historians' Fallacies," 1970]

historian

noun

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Nearby words

Origin of historian

Examples from the Web for historian

historian

noun

historian