Word of the Day Archive
Sunday April 10, 2005
hagiography \hag-ee-OG-ruh-fee; hay-jee-\ , noun:
1. Biography of saints.
2. Idealizing or idolizing biography.
She fit a type easily recognized in the annals of hagiography, and it was on that basis that claims for sainthood were made.
-- Lawrence S. Cunningham, "The Voices of Gemma Galgani", Commonweal, June 6, 2003
Pearce seems to believe he needs to show us that the man was something like a saint. This turns his book into something like hagiography.
-- Francis Beckett, "G K and A K", New Statesman, February 28, 1997
It is by no means a hagiography -- he is alert to, and unsparing of, Bellow's many failings as a man, a friend, a husband and a father.
-- Robert Winder, "The slave of unknown masters", New Statesman, October 23, 2000
Hagiography comes from Greek hagios, "holy" + -graphia, from graphein, "to write."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for hagiography
