biography

English borrowed this word from New Latin biographia, which came from Ancient Greek βιογραφίᾱ (biographíā), itself built from βίος (bíos, life) and -γραφία (-graphía, writing).

The facts here trace only the path from Greek through New Latin into English, with no recorded shift in meaning along the way.

It shares its second half, -γραφία (-graphía, writing), with any English word built from that same Greek root, though no specific cognate is named in the facts available.