hagiography

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 12, 2025 is: hagiography \hag-ee-AH-gruh-fee\ noun Hagiography is biography that idealizes or [idolizes](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idolize) a person and their life. // The book gives a good idea of his virtues without resorting to hagiography. [See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hagiography) Examples: "The sisters’ show can sometimes feel like hagiography; there is little discussion of Basquiat’s demons or the aspects of his home life that may have been difficult." — Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, 9 Apr. 2022 Did you know? The second part of hagiography is familiar: the combining form [-graphy](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/-graphy), which comes from the Greek verb graphein, meaning "to write," is found in [biography](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biography) and [calligraphy](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/calligrapy) (among many others) too. Hagio-, however, is more unusual; it comes from a Greek word that meant "holy, sacred" in Ancient Greek and more recently "saintly," by way of the term [Hagiographa](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Hagiographa), another name for the [Ketuvim](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ketuvim), the third part of the Jewish Scriptures. English's hagiography can refer to biography of actual saints, but it is more typically applied to biography that treats ordinary human subjects as if they were saints.