Definitions

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

  • noun A scholar or writer of history.
  • noun One who writes or compiles a chronological record of events; a chronicler.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A writer, compiler, or narrator of history.
  • noun One who is versed in history.

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

  • noun A writer of history; a chronicler; an annalist.
  • noun One versed or well informed in history.

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

  • noun A writer of history; a chronicler; an annalist.
  • noun One versed or well informed in history.

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

  • noun a person who is an authority on history and who studies it and writes about it

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French historien

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Examples

Comments

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  • JM wonders what the future holds for an historian.

    July 4, 2011

  • "Sometimes the historian fails, on account of his subject; at other times, for the want of materials. It is not in the power of the greatest mind to make that dignified and interesting, which in its nature is low and unattractive. The first step to be taken by a historian, therefore is to exercise his judgment in selecting a subject, which will not cause him to run the hazard of wasting his powers in developing and recording events, that have nothing in them to command the admiration, or awaken the sympathy of mankind. Next come the materials of history, and in no part of his task are the resolution, the patience, the ardor of the historian, more seriously tried than in collecting these." Jared Sparks, in 1826 essay "Materials for American History," as quoted in Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), p. 253.

    April 28, 2017