History Meaning
/ˈhɪs.tə.ɹi/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounThe aggregate of past events.
nounThe aggregate of past events, both unrecorded and recorded.
Sentence Examples
How come you know so much about Japanese history?
Your speech will be recorded in history.
The battle was a turning point in human history.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The teacher explained the ____ of the ancient civilization.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I have always been fascinated by the ____ of ancient civilizations.
Word Origin & History
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.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
"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?"
— 2012 March-April, Jan Sapp, “Race Finished”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 164:
"So, we have a shared history - we will also have a shared future."
— 2017 June 24, James O'Shea, quoting Gerry Adams, “BREAKING: Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams says end to partition of Ireland “in a few short years””, in IrishCentral:
"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."
— 2013 September 6, Peter Beaumont, “Lessons of past cast shadows over Syria”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 13, page 18:
"[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."
— 2014 October 21, Oliver Brown, “Oscar Pistorius jailed for five years”, in The Daily Telegraph (Sport):
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The teacher explained the ____ of the ancient civilization.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I have always been fascinated by the ____ of ancient civilizations.