Autobiography — From Greek to English | etymologist.ai
autobiography
/ˌɔːtəbaɪˈɒɡrəfi/·noun·1797·Established
Origin
Coined in 1797 from Greek 'autos' (self) + 'bios' (life) + 'graphein' (to write) — the story of a life told by the one who lived it.
Definition
An account of a person's life written by that person. The genre of self-written life narratives.
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Greek18th centurywell-attested
A learned compound coined in English, built from three Greek roots: 'autos' (self, same, one's own), from PIE *s(w)e- (reflexive pronoun, oneself) + 'bios' (life, way of living, livelihood), from PIE *gʷeyh₃- (to live) + 'graphein' (to write, scratch, draw), from PIE *gerbʰ- (to scratch, carve). Thewordwas likely first used by William Taylor of Norwich in 1797 in the 'Monthly Review,' though Robert Southey popularized it. Earlier writers used 'self-biography' or 'memoirs
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The earliest surviving autobiography in the Western tradition is Saint Augustine's 'Confessions' (c. 400 CE), though the word 'autobiography' would not be coined for another fourteen centuries. Augustine wrote his life story in the form of a prayer to God — the entire book is addressed to the divine
' appears in 'automatic,' 'automobile,' 'autograph,' 'autopsy,' 'autonomous.' The word's three-part transparency — self-life-writing — made it immediately comprehensible when coined and helped it spread rapidly into European languages. Key roots: autos (Greek: "self"), bios (Greek: "life"), graphein (Greek: "to write"), *gʷeyh₃- (Proto-Indo-European: "to live").