Learning / English Dictionary

HISTORIAN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who is an authority on history and who studies it and writes about it

Synonyms:

historian; historiographer

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("historian" is a kind of...):

bookman; scholar; scholarly person; student (a learned person (especially in the humanities); someone who by long study has gained mastery in one or more disciplines)

Domain category:

history (the discipline that records and interprets past events involving human beings)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "historian"):

annalist (a historian who writes annals)

art historian (a historian of art)

chronicler (someone who writes chronicles)

Instance hyponyms:

C. Northcote Parkinson; Cyril Northcote Parkinson; Parkinson (British historian noted for ridicule of bureaucracies (1909-1993))

James Harvey Robinson; Robinson (United States historian who stressed the importance of intellectual and social events for the course of history (1863-1936))

Saxo Grammaticus (Danish historian who chronicled the history of Denmark (including the legend of Hamlet) (1150?-1220?))

Arthur Meier Schlesinger; Arthur Schlesinger; Schlesinger (United States historian (1888-1965))

Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr.; Arthur Schlesinger; Arthur Schlesinger Jr.; Schlesinger (United States historian and advisor to President Kennedy (born in 1917))

Stubbs; William Stubbs (English historian noted for his constitutional history of medieval England (1825-1901))

Gaius Cornelius Tacitus; Publius Cornelius Tacitus; Tacitus (Roman historian who wrote major works on the history of the Roman Empire (56-120))

Thucydides (ancient Greek historian remembered for his history of the Peloponnesian War (460-395 BC))

Arnold Joseph Toynbee; Arnold Toynbee; Toynbee (English historian who studied the rise and fall of civilizations looking for cyclical patterns (1889-1975))

George Otto Trevelyan; Sir George Otto Trevelyan; Trevelyan (English historian who wrote a history of the American revolution and a biography of his uncle Lord Macaulay (1838-1928))

George Macaulay Trevelyan; Trevelyan (English historian and son of Sir George Otto Trevelyan whose works include a social history of England and a biography of Garibaldi (1876-1962))

Barbara Tuchman; Barbara Wertheim Tuchman; Tuchman (United States historian (1912-1989))

Frederick Jackson Turner; Turner (United States historian who stressed the role of the western frontier in American history (1861-1951))

Sir Paul Gavrilovich Vinogradoff; Vinogradoff (British historian (born in Russia) (1854-1925))

Fourth Earl of Orford; Horace Walpole; Horatio Walpole; Walpole (English writer and historian; son of Sir Robert Walpole (1717-1797))

Elie Wiesel; Eliezer Wiesel; Wiesel (United States writer (born in Romania) who survived Nazi concentration camps and is dedicated to keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust (born in 1928))

C. Vann Woodward; Comer Vann Woodward; Woodward (United States historian (1908-1999))

Xenophon (Greek general and historian; student of Socrates (430-355 BC))

Arendt; Hannah Arendt (United States historian and political philosopher (born in Germany) (1906-1975))

Baeda; Beda; Bede; Saint Baeda; Saint Beda; Saint Bede; St. Baeda; St. Beda; St. Bede; the Venerable Bede ((Roman Catholic Church) English monk and scholar (672-735))

Carlyle; Thomas Carlyle (Scottish historian who wrote about the French Revolution (1795-1881))

Durant; Will Durant; William James Durant (United States historian (1885-1981))

Eusebius; Eusebius of Caesarea (Christian bishop of Caesarea in Palestine; a church historian and a leading early Christian exegete (circa 270-340))

Franklin; John Hope Franklin (United States historian noted for studies of Black American history (born in 1915))

Gardiner; Samuel Rawson Gardiner (British historian remembered for his ten-volume history of England (1829-1902))

Edward Gibbon; Gibbon (English historian best known for his history of the Roman Empire (1737-1794))

Herodotus (the ancient Greek known as the father of history; his accounts of the wars between the Greeks and Persians are the first known examples of historical writing (485-425 BC))

Flavius Josephus; Joseph ben Matthias; Josephus (Jewish general who led the revolt of the Jews against the Romans and then wrote a history of those events (37-100))

John Knox; Knox (Scottish theologian who founded Presbyterianism in Scotland and wrote a history of the Reformation in Scotland (1514-1572))

Livy; Titus Livius (Roman historian whose history of Rome filled 142 volumes (of which only 35 survive) including the earliest history of the war with Hannibal (59 BC to AD 17))

First Baron Macaulay; Lord Macaulay; Macaulay; Thomas Babington Macaulay (English historian noted for his history of England (1800-1859))

Alfred Thayer Mahan; Mahan (United States naval officer and historian (1840-1914))

Frederic William Maitland; Maitland (English historian noted for his works on the history of English law (1850-1906))

John Bach McMaster; McMaster (United States historian who wrote a nine volume history of the people of the United States (1852-1932))

Mommsen; Theodor Mommsen (German historian noted for his history of Rome (1817-1903))

Barthold George Niebuhr; Niebuhr (German historian noted for his critical approach to sources and for his history of Rome (1776-1831))

Credits

 Context examples: 

And now I had a view of all those points of etiquette and curious survivals of custom which are so recent, that we have not yet appreciated that they may some day be as interesting to the social historian as they then were to the sportsman.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That little boys and girls should be tormented, said Henry, is what no one at all acquainted with human nature in a civilized state can deny; but in behalf of our most distinguished historians, I must observe that they might well be offended at being supposed to have no higher aim, and that by their method and style, they are perfectly well qualified to torment readers of the most advanced reason and mature time of life.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

But historians are not accountable for the difficulty of learning to read; and even you yourself, who do not altogether seem particularly friendly to very severe, very intense application, may perhaps be brought to acknowledge that it is very well worth-while to be tormented for two or three years of one's life, for the sake of being able to read all the rest of it.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)