Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The writing of the lives of saints.
  • noun A biography of a saint.
  • noun The writing of an admiring or idealized biography.
  • noun An admiring or idealized biography.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Sacred writing or literature; sacred writings collectively; a collection of lives of the saints.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Same as Hagiographa.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The study of saints.
  • noun countable A biography of a saint.
  • noun countable A biography which expresses reverence and respect for its subject.
  • noun pejorative A biography which is uncritically supportive of its subject, often including embellishments or propaganda.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a biography that idealizes or idolizes the person (especially a person who is a saint)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek ἅγιος (hagios, "holy") + -γραφία (-graphia, "writing").

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Examples

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  • From p. 24 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    Vellum-bound folios and quartos receded in vistas, and thousands of ancient and modern works on theology, canon law, dogma, patrology, patristics, hagiography, mysticism and even magic, and almost as many on secular history, art and travel.

    January 21, 2014