Word of the Day

Sunday, April 10, 2005

hagiography

\hag-ee-OG-ruh-fee; hay-jee-\ , noun;

Biography of saints.

Idealizing or idolizing biography.

Quotes:

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

Origin:

Hagiography comes from Greek hagios, "holy" + -graphia, from graphein, "to write."