history
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
medicine
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
Etymology: From Middle English historie, from Old French estoire, estorie (“chronicle, history, story”) (French histoire), from Latin historia, from Ancient Greek ἱστορίᾱ (historíā, “learning through research”), from ἱστορέω (historéō, “to research, inquire (and) record”), from ἵστωρ (hístōr, “the knowing, wise one”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“see, know”). Doublet of story and storey.
Attested in Middle English in 1393 by John Gower, Confessio Amantis, which was aimed at an educated audience familiar with French and Latin.
Inflected forms:
form: histories
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: Hx
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: hx
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: historie
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: hystorie
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: hystory
pos: noun
tags: alternative
nonstandard
Senses:
gloss: The aggregate of past events, both unrecorded and recorded.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The history of mammals stretches back many millions of years.
History repeats itself if we don’t learn from its mistakes.
He dreams of an invention that will make history.
With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.
Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution. But is the tragic history of efforts to define groups of people by race really a matter of the misuse of science, the abuse of a valid biological concept?
So, we have a shared history - we will also have a shared future.
gloss: The empirical study of past events, as distinct from literature, myth, or scripture; the assessment of notable events.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: He teaches Latin American history at the university and publishes books about the Cold War.
History and experience act as a filter that can distort as much as elucidate. It is largely forgotten now, overlooked in the one-line description of Tony Blair and George W Bush as the men who lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but there was a wider context to their conviction.
gloss: The portion of the past that is known and recorded by this field of study, as opposed to all earlier and unknown times that preceded it.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Near-synonym: ages
in all of human history and prehistory
since the dawn of history
gloss: A set of events involving an entity.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: a long and sordid history
What is your medical history?
The family's history includes events best forgotten.
[I]n the 575 days since [Oscar] Pistorius shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, there has been an unseemly scramble to construct revisionist histories, to identify evidence beneath that placid exterior of a pugnacious, hair-trigger personality.
gloss: A record or narrative description of past events.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: I really enjoyed Shakespeare's tragedies more than his histories.
a short history of post-Columbian colonization
Thucydides wrote a history of the Peleponnesian War that uses different sources than Herodotus' work.
gloss: A list of past and continuing medical conditions of an individual or family.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: A personal medical history is required for the insurance policy.
He has a history of cancer in his family.
This diagnosis is usually based solely on the history and physical examination, although laboratory tests are occasionally also obtained.
gloss: A record of previous user events, especially of visited web pages in a browser.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: I visited a great site yesterday but forgot the URL. Luckily, I didn't clear my history.
When you do that, the browser window has no browser history, so it doesn't report a referrer page to the first site you visit.
gloss: Something that no longer exists or is no longer relevant.
pos: noun
tags: countable
informal
uncountable
examples: I told him that if he doesn't get his act together, he's history.
gloss: Shared experience or interaction.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: There is too much history between them for them to split up now.
He has had a lot of history with the police.
gloss: A historically significant event.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: You are witnessing history!
We have a new president: Barack Obama. I never thought a black man would be elected. It's exciting! It's history!
Related words: historiaster
Derived words: allohistory
alternate history
alternative history
althistory
ancient history
anthrohistory
antihistoricist
antihistoricism
antihistory
arc of history
art history
ashcan of history
ash heap of history
astrohistory
back history
big history
biohistory
call history
case history
computation history
counterhistory
credit history
deep history
dustbin of history
dust heap of history
ecohistory
employment history
end of history
end-of-history illusion
ethnohistory
family history
future history
garbage heap of history
geohistory
germ history
go down in history
herstory
historian
historic
historical
historically
historicide
historied
historify
historiography
historiology
historize
history book
history books
historybounding
history is written by the victors
historyless
historylike
historymaker
history of ideas
history of the four kings
history painting
history repeats itself
history sheet
history-sheeter
historywise
kisstory
landfill of history
life history
living history
lost to history
macrohistory
make history
medical history
megahistory
metahistory
microhistory
minihistory
mis-history
modern history
multi-history interpretation
mystory
mythistory
mythohistory
natural history
nonhistory
on the right side of history
on the wrong side of history
oral history
palaeohistory
paleohistory
parahistory
postal history
posthistory
prehistorian
prehistoric
prehistory
prosecution history
prosecution history estoppel
protohistory
pseudohistory
pseudo-history
psychohistory
public history
rewrite history
secret history
shadow history
social history
sociohistory
subhistory
the rest is history
time history
trash bin of history
trash heap of history
tribal history
unhistory
Whig history
work history
world history
xenohistory
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