Definition of history | Collins English Dictionary

history (ˈhɪstərɪ;ˈhɪstrɪ)

1. a record or account, often chronological in approach, of past events, developments, etc
2. ((as modifier) ⇒ a history book a history play
all that is preserved or remembered of the past, esp in written form
the discipline of recording and interpreting past events involving human beings
past events, esp when considered as an aggregate
an event in the past, esp one that has been forgotten or reduced in importance ⇒ their quarrel was just history
the past, background, previous experiences, etc, of a thing or person ⇒ the house had a strange history
computing a stored list of the websites that a user has recently visited
a play that depicts or is based on historical events
a narrative relating the events of a character's life ⇒ the history of Joseph Andrews

Abbreviation (for senses 1–3)

C15: from Latin historia, from Greek: enquiry, from historein to narrate, from histōr judge

View thesaurus entry

= the past, the old days antiquity, yesterday, the good old days yesteryear, ancient history, olden days days of old days of yore bygone times

= life story, story, biography, autobiography, memoirs,

"The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles" Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
"History is philosophy from examples" Dionysius of Halicarnassus
"There is properly no history; only biography" Ralph Waldo Emerson
"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today" Henry Ford
"History is past politics, and politics is present history" E.A. Freeman
"What experience and history teach is this - that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it" G.W.F. Hegel
"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" James Joyce
"The world's history is the world's judgement" Friedrich von Schiller
"Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes" Voltaire
"That great dust-heap called `history'" Augustine Birrell
"History [is] a distillation of rumour" Thomas Carlyle
"History gets thicker as it approaches recent times" A.J.P. Taylor
"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce" Karl Marx
"History is littered with wars that everybody knew would never happen" Enoch Powell
"History is the essence of innumerable biographies" Thomas Carlyle
"History repeats itself"

British English: history You can refer to the events of the past as history. You can also refer to the past events which concern a particular topic or place as its history.He later studied history at university.ˈhɪstərɪ; ˈhɪstrɪ NOUN He later studied history at university.
Spanish: historia nf
French: histoire nf
German: Geschichte nf
Chinese: 历史 n
Arabic: تَارِيخ n
Portuguese: História nf
Russian: история nf
Croatian: povijest nf
Czech: historie nf
Danish: historie nutr
Dutch: geschiedenis nf
Finnish: historia n
Greek: ιστορία nf
Italian: storia nf
Japanese: 歴史 n
Korean: 역사 n
Norwegian: historie nm
Polish: historia nf
Brazilian Portuguese: história nf
European Spanish: historia nf
Swedish: historia nutr
Thai: ประวัติศาสตร์ n
Turkish: tarih n
Vietnamese: lịch sử n

Once started, her history gushed out of her, reducing her to tears at some points, hardening her at others.
Mark Burnell, CHAMELEON (2002)
Innovations created in the Queen's name have also changed the history of rose horticulture.
Country Life (2004)
Few events in modern financial history match the scandal involving the Bank of Commerce & Credit International (BCCI).
Irish Times (2002)
THERE is an overriding feeling of suspicion when Americans invoke history.
Glasgow Herald (2001)
To clinch the diagnosis, Dr Klawans looked for a positive family history (someone else in the family with the same disease).
Jim Leavesley, George Biro, THE MEDICAL MYSTERIES E-OMNIBUS (2001)