biographical
adjective
Simple meaning
Related to a record or narrative description of past events.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
byuhgrafihkuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
baɪəɡˈɹæfɪkəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Of or relating to an account of a person's life
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Of or relating to an account of a person's life
Used this way, biographical is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use biographical
- “The new book provides a detailed biographical account of the famous artist.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
An account of the series of events making up a person's life.
Someone who writes an account of a person's life.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.