[This word and its numerous connections (see above) are recent. No compounds of the group existed in Old Greek: but βιογραφία ‘writing of lives’ (f. βίο-ς life + -γραφία writing, f. γράφ-ειν to write, -γράφος writer), is quoted from Damascius c. 500, and βιογράφος ‘writer of lives’ is cited by Du Cange as med.Gr. Biographus, biographia, were used in mod.L. before any words of the group appeared in Eng., where biographist was used by Fuller 1662, biography by Dryden 1683, biographer by Addison 1715, biographical by Oldys 1738; all the others are later. It is doubtful whether biographist was formed directly from the Gr. elements, or after mod.L. biographus; biography appears to have been an adaptation of L. biographia. The first appearance of biographe, biographie in Fr. is not recorded; so that their immediate relation to the Eng. words is not yet determined.]
1. The history of the lives of individual men, as a branch of literature.
1683. Dryden, Life Plutarch (1712), 55. Biographia, or the History of particular Mens Lives, comes next to be considered. Ibid., 59. In all parts of Biography … Plutarch equally excell’d.
a. 1724. Fiddes, Life Wolsey, Introd. 15. That Distinction or particular Branch of History, which is termed Biography.
1803. Scott, in Lockhart, xi. Biography, the most interesting perhaps of every species of composition.
1883. Halliwell-Phillipps, Life Shaks., Pref. 1. At the present day, with biography carried to a wasteful and ridiculous excess.
2. A written record of the life of an individual.
c. 1791. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Bozzy & Piozzi (1812), 361. Bid her a poor biography suspend, Nor crucify through vanity a friend.
1814. Pinkerton, Voy., XVII. Index, Biography of Haller.
1883. Halliwell-Phillipps, Life Shaks., Pref. 12. John Aubrey … was the author of numerous little biographies.
b. Comb.
1860. Sat. Rev., IX. 301. If it had come from the hands of a regular biography-monger.
3. transf. The life-course of a man or other living being; the ‘life-history’ of an animal or plant.
1854. H. Miller, Footpr. Creat., xv. (1874), 268. In studying the biography, if I may so express myself, of an individual animal.
1883. Halliwell-Phillipps, Life Shaks., Pref. 8. The scanty records of the poet’s biography that yet remain.
