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)

1. (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.

2. (uncountable) Biographies of this kind regarded as a literary genre.

Synonyms

• memoir
• life story

Antonyms

• heterobiography

Hypernyms

• biography

Derived terms

• autobiographical, autobiographically
• pseudo-autobiography

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)

  Hokkien: 自傳／自传 (zh-min-nan) (chū-toān)

  Mandarin: 自傳／自传 (zh) (zìzhuàn)

• Czech: vlastní životopis m, autobiografie (cs) f
• Danish: selvbiografi (da) c
• Dutch: autobiografie (nl) f
• Esperanto: aŭtobiografio, membiografio
• Faroese: sjálvsævisøga f
• Finnish: omaelämäkerta (fi)
• French: autobiographie (fr) f
• Galician: autobiografía (gl) f
• Georgian: ავტობიოგრაფია (avṭobiograpia)
• German: Autobiografie (de) f, Selbstbiographie (de) 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

• Sorbian

  Upper Sorbian: awtobiografija f

• Slovak: vlastný životopis m
• Spanish: autobiografía (es) f
• Swahili: tarijama
• 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