autobiography

English

Etymology

auto- +‎ biography

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɔː.tə.baɪˈɒɡ.ɹə.fi/
Audio (US) (file)
Rhymes: -ɒɡɹəfi

Noun

autobiography (countable and uncountable, plural autobiographies)

(countable) A self-written biography; the story of one's own life.
- 1904, Mark Twain, “To W. D. Howells, in New York: Villa di Quarto, Florence, March 14, ’04”, in Albert Bigelow Paine, editor, Mark Twain's Letters, volume 2, published 1917, page 751:
  Autobiography […] inevitably consists mainly of extinctions of the truth, shirkings of the truth, partial revealments of the truth, with hardly an instance of plain straight truth […]
- 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter XI:
  Here I was interrupted, as I'm so often interrupted when giving my views on the Yeoman's Wedding Song, by her saying that she was dying to hear all about it but would rather wait till she could get it in my autobiography.
(uncountable) Biographies of this kind regarded as a literary genre.

Synonyms

memoir
life story

Antonyms

heterobiography

Hypernyms

biography

Derived terms

autobiographical, autobiographically

Related terms

biography

Translations

biography of oneself

Albanian: autobiografi (sq)
Arabic: سِيرَة ذَاتِيَّة‎ f (sīra(t) ḏātiyya)
Armenian: ինքնակենսագրություն (hy) (inkʿnakensagrutʿyun)
Asturian: autobiografía f
Belarusian: аўтабіягра́фія f (aŭtabijahráfija)
Bulgarian: автобиогра́фия (bg) f (avtobiográfija)
Catalan: autobiografia (ca) f
Chinese:
Cantonese: 自傳, 自传 (zi⁶ zyun^6-2)
Mandarin: 自傳／自传 (zh) (zìzhuàn)
Min Nan: 自傳 (zh-min-nan), 自传 (chū-toān)
Czech: vlastní životopis m, autobiografie (cs) f
Danish: selvbiografi c
Dutch: autobiografie (nl) f
Esperanto: aŭtobiografio, membiografio
Faroese: sjálvsævisøga f
Finnish: omaelämäkerta (fi)
French: autobiographie (fr) f
Galician: autobiografía (gl) f
German: Autobiografie (de) f, Selbstbiographie f, Lebenserinnerungen f pl
Greek: αυτοβιογραφία (el) f (aftoviografía)
Hebrew: אוטוביוגרפיה‎ f (ot'obiografia)
Hindi: आत्मकथा (hi) f (ātmakathā), आपबीती f (āpbītī)
Hungarian: önéletrajz (hu)
Indonesian: autobiografi (id)
Irish: dírbheathaisnéis f
Italian: autobiografia (it) f
Japanese: 自伝 (ja) (じでん, jiden), 自叙伝 (ja) (jijoden)
Korean: 자서전 (ko) (jaseojeon)
Latvian: autobiogrāfija f
Lithuanian: autobiografija f
Macedonian: автобиографија f (avtobiografija)
Maltese: awtobijografija
Maori: haukiri
Norwegian:
Bokmål: selvbiografi m
Nynorsk: sjølvbiografi m
Persian: حسب‌حال‎ (hasb-e-hâl)
Polish: autobiografia (pl) f
Portuguese: autobiografia (pt) f
Romanian: autobiografie (ro)
Russian: автобиогра́фия (ru) f (avtobiográfija)
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: аутобиографија f
Roman: autobiografija (sh) f
Slovak: vlastný životopis m
Spanish: autobiografía (es) f
Swedish: självbiografi (sv) c
Tagalog: saribuhay
Thai: อัตชีวประวัติ (th)
Turkish: otobiyografi (tr), özyaşamöyküsü
Ukrainian: автобіогра́фія (uk) f (avtobiohráfija)
Welsh: hunangofiant m
Yiddish: אויטאָביאָגראַפֿיע‎ f (oytobyografye)

Anagrams

bioautography