his·to·ry

(hĭs′tə-rē)

n. pl. his·to·ries

a. A chronological record of events, as of the life or development of a people or institution, often including an explanation of or commentary on those events: a history of the Vikings.

b. A formal written account of related natural phenomena: a history of volcanoes.

c. A record of a patient's general medical background: took the patient's history.

d. An established condition or pattern of behavior: an inmate with a history of mental illness and drug abuse.

2. The branch of knowledge that records and analyzes past events: "History has a long-range perspective" (Elizabeth Gurley Flynn).

a. The past events relating to a particular thing: The history of their rivalry is full of intrigue.

b. The aggregate of past events or human affairs: basic tools used throughout history.

c. An interesting past: a house with history.

d. Something that belongs to the past: Their troubles are history now.

e. Slang One that is no longer worth consideration: Why should we worry about him? He's history!

4. A drama based on historical events: the histories of Shakespeare.

[Middle English histoire, from Old French, from Latin historia, from Greek historiā, from historein, to inquire, from histōr, learned man; see weid- in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

history

(ˈhɪstərɪ; ˈhɪstrɪ)

n, pl -ries

1. (Historical Terms)

a. a record or account, often chronological in approach, of past events, developments, etc

b. (as modifier): a history book; a history play.

2. (Historical Terms) all that is preserved or remembered of the past, esp in written form

3. (Historical Terms) the discipline of recording and interpreting past events involving human beings

4. (Historical Terms) past events, esp when considered as an aggregate

5. an event in the past, esp one that has been forgotten or reduced in importance: their quarrel was just history.

6. the past, background, previous experiences, etc, of a thing or person: the house had a strange history.

7. (Telecommunications) computing a stored list of the websites that a user has recently visited

8. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) a play that depicts or is based on historical events

9. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) a narrative relating the events of a character's life: the history of Joseph Andrews.

Abbreviation (for senses 1–3): hist

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

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

his•to•ry

(ˈhɪs tə ri, ˈhɪs tri)

n., pl. -ries.

1. the branch of knowledge dealing with past events.

2. a continuous, systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc., usu. written as a chronological account.

3. the aggregate of past events.

4. the record of past events and times, esp. in connection with the human race.

5. a past notable for its important, unusual, or interesting events: a ship with a history.

6. acts, ideas, or events that will or can shape the course of the future.

7. a systematic account of any set of natural phenomena without reference to time.

8. a drama representing historical events.

Idioms:

be history, to be no longer present, participating, or relevant: If they lose this game, they're history.

[1350–1400; Middle English < Latin historia < Greek historía learning or knowing by inquiry, history, derivative of hístōr one who knows or sees (akin to wit²)]

History

See Also: PAST

Americans treat history like a cookbook. Whenever they are uncertain what to do next, they turn to history and look up the proper recipe, invariably designated “The lesson of history” —Russell Baker See Also: CHARACTERISTICS, NATIONAL
Carried his history with him like a tattooed sailor —Alice McDermott
History is a hill or a high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are —G. K. Chesterton
Chesterton continues this simile as follows: “Without some such contrast or comparison, without some such shifting of the point of view, we should see nothing whatever of our own social surroundings. We should take them for granted, as the only possible social surroundings.”
History is floated like a bond issue on the fat of banks —Marge Piercy
History is written to order like the Sunday funnies —Marge Piercy
This is one of several similes pertaining to history in Piercy’s poem, For Shoshana Rihm.
History … like some lump of viscid porridge sliding slowly down a sink —Lawrence Durrell
History passes like falling rocks in the dark —Robinson Jeffers
History [in narrator’s view] … sifting and seeping, piddling itself away as one wastes a Sunday —William H. Gass
History trails its meaning like old cobwebs caught in a cellar broom —Robert Penn Warren
History was a trash bag of random coincidences torn open in a wind —Joseph Heller
To the scientific eye all human history is a series of collective movements, destructions or migrations, like the massacre of flies in winter or the return of birds in spring —G. K. Chesterton
You can’t escape history, or the needs and neuroses you’ve picked up like layers and layers of tartar on your teeth —Charles Johnson

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	history - the aggregate of past events; "a critical time in the school's history" past, past times, yesteryear - the time that has elapsed; "forget the past" antiquity - the historic period preceding the Middle Ages in Europe historic period, age - an era of history having some distinctive feature; "we live in a litigious age" Dark Ages, Middle Ages - the period of history between classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance Renaissance, Renascence - the period of European history at the close of the Middle Ages and the rise of the modern world; a cultural rebirth from the 14th through the middle of the 17th centuries
	2.	history - a record or narrative description of past events; "a history of France"; "he gave an inaccurate account of the plot to kill the president"; "the story of exposure to lead" account, chronicle, story history - the discipline that records and interprets past events involving human beings; "he teaches Medieval history"; "history takes the long view" ancient history - a history of the ancient world etymology - a history of a word case history - detailed record of the background of a person or group under study or treatment historical document, historical paper, historical record - writing having historical value (as opposed to fiction or myth etc.) chronological record, annals - a chronological account of events in successive years biography, life history, life story, life - an account of the series of events making up a person's life record - anything (such as a document or a phonograph record or a photograph) providing permanent evidence of or information about past events; "the film provided a valuable record of stage techniques" recital - a detailed account or description of something; "he was forced to listen to a recital of his many shortcomings"
	3.	history - the discipline that records and interprets past events involving human beings; "he teaches Medieval history"; "history takes the long view" Boston Tea Party - demonstration (1773) by citizens of Boston who (disguised as Indians) raided three British ships in Boston harbor and dumped hundreds of chests of tea into the harbor; organized as a protest against taxes on tea arts, humanistic discipline, humanities, liberal arts - studies intended to provide general knowledge and intellectual skills (rather than occupational or professional skills); "the college of arts and sciences" account, chronicle, history, story - a record or narrative description of past events; "a history of France"; "he gave an inaccurate account of the plot to kill the president"; "the story of exposure to lead" historian, historiographer - a person who is an authority on history and who studies it and writes about it Saracen - (historically) a Muslim who opposed the Crusades Saracen - (historically) a member of the nomadic people of the Syrian and Arabian deserts at the time of the Roman Empire
	4.	history - the continuum of events occurring in succession leading from the past to the present and even into the future; "all of human history" continuum - a continuous nonspatial whole or extent or succession in which no part or portion is distinct or distinguishable from adjacent parts
	5.	history - all that is remembered of the past as preserved in writing; a body of knowledge; "the dawn of recorded history"; "from the beginning of history" cognition, knowledge, noesis - the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning

history

noun

1. the past, the old days, antiquity, yesterday, the good old days, yesteryear, ancient history, olden days, days of old, days of yore, bygone times Is history about to repeat itself?

2. chronicle, record, story, account, relation, narrative, saga, recital, narration, annals, recapitulation his magnificent history of broadcasting in Canada

3. life story, story, biography, autobiography, memoirs I studied her history closely.

Quotations
"The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles" [Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The Communist Manifesto]
"History is philosophy from examples" [Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ars Rhetorica]
"There is properly no history; only biography" [Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays]
"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 Methods of Historical Study]
"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 Philosophy of History]
"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" [James Joyce Ulysses]
"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 L'Ingénu]
"That great dust-heap called `history'" [Augustine Birrell Obiter Dicta]
"History [is] a distillation of rumour" [Thomas Carlyle History of the French Revolution]
"History gets thicker as it approaches recent times" [A.J.P. Taylor English History 1914-45]
"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce" [Karl Marx]

Proverbs
"History repeats itself"

History

Historical characters Alexander the Great, Alfred the Great, Mark Antony, Attila the Hun, Augustus, Thomas à Becket, Billy the Kid, The Black Prince, Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Edward Stuart), Lucrezia Borgia, Boudicca or Boadicea, Brutus, Buddha, Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody), Julius Caesar, Catherine the Great, Charlemagne, Winston Churchill, El Cid, Cleopatra, Clive of India, Christopher Columbus, Captain James Cook, Hernando Cortés, Crazy Horse, Davy Crockett, Oliver Cromwell, George Armstrong Custer, Francis Drake, Guy Fawkes, Yuri Gagarin, Mahatma Gandhi, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Genghis Khan, Geronimo, Gordon of Khartoum, Che Guevara, Haile Selassie, Hannibal, Henry VIII, Hereward the Wake, Hiawatha, Wild Bill (James Butler) Hickok, Adolf Hitler, Ivan the Terrible, Jesse James, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Lawrence of Arabia, Robert E(dward) Lee, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther, Mary, Queen of Scots, Mao Ze Dong or Mao Tse-tung, Marie Antoinette, Mohammed or Muhammad, Montezuma, Benito Mussolini, Napoleon Bonaparte, Horatio Nelson, Florence Nightingale, Captain (Lawrence Edward Grace) Oates, Pericles, Marco Polo, Pompey, Walter Raleigh, Grigori Efimovich Rasputin, Richard the Lionheart, Robert the Bruce, Saladin, Robert Falcon Scott, Sitting Bull, Socrates, Joseph Stalin, Tomás de Torquemada, Leon Trotsky, William Wallace, Warwick the Kingmaker, George Washington, Duke of Wellington, William the Conqueror, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Emiliano Zapata

Historical events Agincourt, Alamo, American Civil War or (chiefly U.S.) the War between the States, Armistice, Battle of Hastings, Black Death, Bloody Sunday, Boer War, Boston Tea Party, Boxer Rebellion, Charge of the Light Brigade, Civil War, Cold War, Crimean War, Crusades, Cultural Revolution, D-day, Declaration of Independence, Depression, Diet of Worms, Easter Rising, French Revolution, General Strike, Gettysburg Address, Glorious Revolution, Gordon Riots, Great Fire of London, Great Schism, Great Trek, Gunpowder Plot, Hiroshima, Holocaust, Hundred Years War, Hungarian Uprising, Indian Mutiny, Industrial Revolution, Jacobite Rebellion, Korean War, Kristallnacht or Crystal Night, Long March, Magna Carta, Munich Agreement, Night of the Long Knives, Napoleonic Wars, Norman Conquest, Pearl Harbor, Peasants' Revolt, Peterloo Massacre, Potato Famine, Reformation, Reign of Terror, Renaissance, Restoration, Risorgimento, Russian Revolution, Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, South Sea Bubble, Spanish Armada, Spanish Civil War, Spanish Inquisition, Suez Crisis, Thirty Years' War, Tiananmen Square Massacre, Trafalgar, Treaty of Versailles, Vietnam War, Wall Street Crash, Wars of the Roses, Watergate, Waterloo

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

history

noun

1. A recounting of past events:

account, chronicle, description, narration, narrative, report, statement, story, version.

2. A chronological record of past events:

annals, chronicle.

3. Past events surrounding a person or thing:

background, past.

Translations

تاريخ تَارِيختاريخ، أحْداثتاریخوَصْف

historiedějinydějepisný

historiehistorie-

Geschichte Vergangenheit Verlauf Werdegang Erzählung

ιστορία ιστορικό

historia antecedentes

ajaluguhaiguslugu

تاریخ

historia

histoire historique

povijestpovijest bolestianamneza

történelemtörténethistóriakórtörténetmúlt

sagasaga, sagnfræîi

storia storia antica storia naturale storicamente storico

歴史沿革病歴経歴経過

역사사학

historia

įeiti į istorijąistorijaistorikasistorinisistoriškai

vēsturevēstures-

история история болезни

dejepisnýdejinyhistória

zgodovinazgodovinopisjepreteklost

istorijapovestисторијаповест

historiahistorikloggberättelse

ประวัติศาสตร์

tarih tarihçe

lịch sử

历史历史学来历歷史

history

[ˈhɪstərɪ] N → historia f
to go down in history → pasar a la historia (as como) to make history → hacer época, marcar un hito
to know the inner history of an affair → conocer el secreto de un asunto
he has a history of psychiatric disorder → tiene antecedentes de problemas psiquiátricos
the highest salary in television history → el sueldo más alto de la historia de la televisión
a piece of history → un trozo or fragmento de la historia
that's ancient history → ésa es cosa vieja
the rest is history → el resto ya lo sabéis, el resto ya es historia

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

history

[ˈhɪstəri] n

(= past events) [country, town, person] → histoire f
one of the most dramatic moments in Polish history → l'un des moments cruciaux de l'histoire polonaise
throughout history → à travers l'histoire
to make history → entrer dans l'histoire
to go down in history → rester dans l'histoire
He will go down in history for redrawing the political map of Britain → Il restera dans l'histoire pour avoir redessiner la carte politique britannique.
to go down in history as sth → rester dans l'histoire comme qch
He will go down in history as one of the principal architects of the peace process → Il restera dans l'histoire comme l'un des principaux architectes du processus de paix.
that's history (= over and done with) → c'est de l'histoire ancienne
you're history! → tu es fini !
and the rest is history → et tout le monde connaît la suite
We met at college, and the rest is history → Nous nous sommes rencontrés au lycée et tout le monde connaît la suite.

(= past record) to have a history of sth → avoir des antécédents de qch
He has a history of drink problems → Il a des antécédents alcooliques.
to have a family history of sth → avoir des antécédents familiaux de qch
a family history of thrombosis → des antécédents familiaux de thrombose
a family history of heart disease → des antécédents familiaux de maladies cardiaques
to have a family history of sth → avoir des antécédents familiaux de qch
a college with a tremendous sporting history → une école au palmarès sportif impressionnant medical history

(= subject, study) → histoire f
a professor of history, a history professor → un professeur d'histoire

history

→ Geschichte f; (= study of history) → Geschichte f, → Geschichtswissenschaft f; history will judge → die Geschichte wird ihr Urteil fällen; history has taught us that … → die Geschichte lehrt uns, dass …; the highest salary in television history → das höchste Gehalt in der Geschichte des Fernsehens; to make history → Geschichte machen; … and the rest is history → … und der Rest ist Geschichte; that’s all history now (fig) → das gehört jetzt alles der Vergangenheit an; he’s history → er ist schon lange vergessen or passé (inf)

(= personal record) → Geschichte f; he has a history of violence → er hat eine Vorgeschichte als Gewalttäter; the family has a history of heart disease → Herzleiden liegen in der Familie; he has a history of heart disease → er hat schon lange ein Herzleiden

(= background) → Vorgeschichte f; to know the history of an affair → den Hintergrund einer Affäre kennen

(Comput) → Verlauf m, → Protokoll nt

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

history

[ˈhɪst/ərɪ] n → storia
a history book → un libro di storia
to make history → fare storia
to go down in history → passare alla storia
there's a long history of that illness in his family → ci sono molti precedenti (della malattia) nella sua famiglia

history

(ˈhistəri) – plural ˈhistories – noun

1. the study of events etc that happened in the past. She is studying British history; (also adjective) a history lesson/book.

2. a description usually in writing of past events, ways of life etc. I'm writing a history of Scotland.

3. (the description of) the usually interesting events etc associated with (something). This desk/word has a very interesting history.

hiˈstorian (-ˈstoː-) noun

a person who studies (and writes about) history.

hiˈstoric (-ˈsto-) adjective

famous or important in history. a historic battle.

hiˈstorical (-ˈsto-) adjective

1. of or about history; of or about people or events from history. historical research; historical novels.

2. that actually happened or existed, not legendary or mythical. Was Shakespeare's character Macbeth a historical person?

hiˈstorically (-ˈsto-) adverb

make history

to do something very important, especially to be the first to do something. The Wright brothers made history when they were the first to fly an aeroplane.

history

→ تَارِيخ historie historie Geschichte ιστορία historia historia histoire povijest storia 歴史 역사 geschiedenis historie historia história история historia ประวัติศาสตร์ tarih lịch sử 历史

history

n (pl -ries) historia, historial m, antecedentes mpl; family — antecedentes familiares; — and physical historia clínica y examen físico; — of (cancer, trauma, etc.) antecedentes de (cáncer, traumatismo, etc.); — of the present illness historia de la enfermedad actual; medical — historia clínica or médica, historial médico; natural — (of a disease) historia or evolución f natural (de una enfermedad); past medical — antecedentes médicos or personales