biographic

IPA/ˌbaɪ.əˈɡræf.ɪk/
IPA/ˌbaɪ.oʊˈɡræf.ɪk/

biographic — adjective

  • biographicpositive
  • more biographiccomparative
  • most biographicsuperlative

1. Giving factual information about someone's life, especially in a book, article,

1.adjectiveC2
Definition

Giving factual information about someone's life, especially in a book, article, or film.

Example

The website gives biographic details about each Olympic runner.

collocation: biographic details

Elise added a biographic note under the old family photograph.

collocation: biographic note

Common collocations
  • biographic details
  • biographic note
  • biographic sketch
  • biographic paragraph
  • biographic panel
Synonyms
  • biographical

    The standard and much more common equivalent in modern English.

  • life-story

    Used mainly in compounds such as 'life-story film'; less formal and less exact.

Antonyms
  • fictional

    Describes invented characters or events rather than real-life facts.

  • nonbiographical

    Specifically states that a text or record is not about a person's life.

Grammar Patterns

biographic + noun

biographic + detail/note/sketch

Usage Note

Mostly used before nouns such as note, sketch, detail, or film. In everyday English, biographical is much more common, so biographic often sounds more formal or technical.

Common Mistakes

It is an autobiographic article about the president.
It is a biographic article about the president.
'autobiographic' is for a person's own life story, not someone else's.
The article is biographic of the actor.
The article gives a biographic account of the actor.
'biographic' is usually placed before a noun rather than after it with 'of'.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

Biographic and biographical both describe material about a person's life, but biographical is far more common in modern English. Biographic can still appear in museum labels, catalog notes, or other formal descriptions, where it sounds slightly compressed or technical. Autobiographical is different because it points to a person's own life story, told by that person or closely based on personal experience. Historical is broader again: it may describe a period, event, or public change rather than one person's life. A useful shortcut is this: a library might file biographic notes about a poet, a memoir may be autobiographical, and a book about wartime policy is historical, not biographic.

biographical ↗autobiographical ↗historical ↗biographic ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • biographic detail
  • biographic note
  • biographic sketch
  • biographic film

Etymology

GreekLatinFrenchEnglish

Biographic was formed in English from biography with the adjective ending -ic. The family goes back through French and Latin to Greek bios, meaning 'life', and graphein, meaning 'to write', so the word keeps the idea of writing or recording a person's life.