history

Syllables: his·to·ry/ˈhɪs.tə.ɹi/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ˈhɪst͡ʃ(ə)ɹɪj/

history noun: the aggregate of past events, both unrecorded and recorded.

Noun

history (countable and uncountable, plural histories)

The aggregate of past events, both unrecorded and recorded.
- The history of mammals stretches back many millions of years.
- History repeats itself if we don’t learn from its mistakes.
Synonyms:

past, ages, background
The empirical study of past events, as distinct from literature, myth, or scripture; the assessment of notable events.
- He teaches Latin American history at the university and publishes books about the Cold War.
- 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
The portion of the past that is known and recorded by this field of study, as opposed to all earlier and unknown times that preceded it.
- Near-synonym: ages
- in all of human history and prehistory
Synonyms:

ages
(countable) A set of events involving an entity.
- a long and sordid history
- What is your medical history?
(countable) A record or narrative description of past events.
- I really enjoyed Shakespeare's tragedies more than his histories.
- a short history of post-Columbian colonization
Synonyms:

account, chronicle, story, tale
(countable) A list of past and continuing medical conditions of an individual or family.
- A personal medical history is required for the insurance policy.
- He has a history of cancer in his family.
Synonyms:

medical history
(countable) A record of previous user events, especially of visited web pages in a browser.
- I visited a great site yesterday but forgot the URL. Luckily, I didn't clear my history.
- When you do that, the browser window has no browser history, so it doesn't report a referrer page to the first site you visit.2006, Todd Stauffer, Kirk McElhearn, Mastering Mac OS X, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 344
Synonyms:

log
(informal) Something that no longer exists or is no longer relevant.
- I told him that if he doesn't get his act together, he's history.
(uncountable) Shared experience or interaction.
- There is too much history between them for them to split up now.
- He has had a lot of history with the police.
(uncountable) A historically significant event.
- You are witnessing history!
- We have a new president: Barack Obama. I never thought a black man would be elected. It's exciting! It's history!2015, Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland

Verb

history (third-person singular simple present histories, present participle historying, simple past and past participle historied)

(obsolete) To narrate or record.
- And therefore will hee wipe his Tables cleane,
  And keepe no Tell-tale to his Memorie,
  That may repeat, and Historie his lossec. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […]...

history meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

history in Hindi

aggregate of past events: इतिहास itihās, तारीख़ tārīx
branch of knowledge that studies the past: इतिहास itihās, तारीख़ tārīx
record or narrative description of past events: इतिवृत्त itivŕtt

history in Tamil

aggregate of past events: வரலாறு varalāṟu, சரித்திரம் carittiram

history in Marathi

aggregate of past events: इतिहास itihās
branch of knowledge that studies the past: इतिहास itihās
set of events involving an entity: इतिहास itihās
record or narrative description of past events: इतिहास itihās

history in Urdu

aggregate of past events: تارِیخ tārīx, اِتِہاس itihās
branch of knowledge that studies the past: اِتِہاس itihās, تارِیخ tārīx

More languagesFewer languages

history in Bengali: ইতিহাস itihaś
history in Telugu: చరిత్ర caritra, చరితం caritaṁ, చరిత carita
history in Malayalam: ചരിത്രം caritraṁ
history in Kannada: ಇತಿಹಾಸ itihāsa
history in Punjabi: ਇਤਿਹਾਸ itihās
history in Gujarati: ઇતિહાસ itihās
history in Odia: ଇତିହାସ itihāsa
history in Sanskrit: इतिहास itihāsa
history in Sinhala: ඉතිහාසය itihāsaya, පුරාවෘත්තය purāwr̥ttaya
history in Assamese: ইতিহাস itihax
history in Nepali: इतिहास itihās
history in Pashto: تاريخ tārix
history in Tagalog: kasaysayan
history in Arabic: تَارِيخ tārīḵ, تاريخ tarīḵ, مَحْفُوظَات maḥfūẓāt
history in Malay: sejarah, tawarikh
history in Indonesian: sejarah, histori, riwayat
history in Persian: تَارِیخ tārīx, تَأْرِیخ ta'rīx, تاریخ târix, سابِقِه sâbeġe
history in Thai: ประวัติศาสตร์ bprà-wàt-dtì-sàat, ประวัติ bprà-wàt
history in Vietnamese: lịch sử
history in Myanmar: သမိုင်း sa.muing:
Kashmiri: تَوٲریٖخ tavạ̄rīkh, اِتِہاس

Examples of history in a sentence

He dreams of an invention that will make history.
since the dawn of history
The family's history includes events best forgotten.
This car has something of a history attached to it.
Thucydides wrote a history of the Peleponnesian War that uses different sources than Herodotus' work.
This diagnosis is usually based solely on the history and physical examination, although laboratory tests are occasionally also obtained.

All 40 example sentences with history

Synonyms of history

All synonyms of history

Forms of history

Noun
plural	histories
alternative form	Hx
alternative form	hx
alternative form (obsolete)	historie
alternative form (obsolete)	hystorie
alternative form (nonstandard)	hystory
Verb
third-person singular present	histories
present participle	historying
past participle	historied
past	historied

Plural of history: histories

Origin of 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.

Words formed from history

Phrases with history

34 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with history

mystery

Questions about history

What does history mean?: History means the aggregate of past events, both unrecorded and recorded.
What is history in Hindi?: History in Hindi is इतिहास (itihās), तारीख़ (tārīx), इतिवृत्त (itivŕtt). See History meaning in Hindi.
How do you use history in a sentence?: He dreams of an invention that will make history.
What part of speech is history?: History can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce history?: History is pronounced /ˈhɪs.tə.ɹi/ (UK).
What is the plural of history?: The plural of history is histories.

Words near history in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: history (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-history.ogg, en-us-history.ogg.

Cite this entry: “history.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/history. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.