hagiography

*****************************************************************
Word game lovers! Enjoy a free trial subscription to 
Merriam-Webster Unabridged and try our new brainteasers!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/premium/
*****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for April 25 is:

hagiography   \hag-ee-AH-gruh-fee\   noun
     1 : biography of saints or venerated persons
    *2 : idealizing or idolizing biography 

Example sentence:
     "In Elvis hagiography, Presley's 'C' in music is like 
Einstein's flunking math." (Scott Spencer, _The Nation_, 
December 5, 1994)

Did you know?
     Like "biography" and "autograph," the word "hagiography" 
has to do with the written word. The combining form "-graphy" 
comes from Greek "graphein," meaning "to write." "Hagio-" comes 
from a Greek word that means "saintly" or "holy." This origin is 
seen in _Hagiographa_, the Greek designation of the _Ketuvim_, 
the third division of the Hebrew Bible. Our English 
word "hagiography," though it can refer to biography of actual 
saints, is these days more often applied to biography that 
treats ordinary human subjects as if they were saints.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.