Definition of "history" []

• A usually chronological record of events, as of the life or development of a people or institution, often including an explanation of or commentary on those events: a history of the Vikings. (noun)
• A formal written account of related natural phenomena: a history of volcanoes. (noun)
• A record of a patient's medical background. (noun)
• An established record or pattern of behavior: an inmate with a history of substance abuse. (noun)
• The branch of knowledge that records and analyzes past events: "History has a long-range perspective” ( Elizabeth Gurley Flynn). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Collingwood arrives at the claim that history is the study of mind by reflecting on what we mean when we use the word ˜history™."
• "The form differs from the content, _history_ differs from the _reality_ of which it is the history, and morality is more than the story of its vicissitudes, of its gradual, painful development from the pre-historic times to our own."
• "That _history_ and _argument_ are so rejected by all parties affecting to be _reformed_ churches, will appear from the following citations from their own authoritative judicial declarations: "Authentic history and sound argument are always to be highly valued; but they should not be incorporated with the confession of the Church's faith.""