Prosopography
[prah-sə-PAH-ɡrə-fee]
Part of speech: noun
Origin: Latin, late 16th century
1.
A description of a person's social and family connections, career, etc., or a collection of such descriptions.
Examples of Prosopography in a sentence
"The sociologist used the prosopographies of different groups to study larger trends."
"Sydney wondered if prosopography was a lost art."
About Prosopography
This word stems from the modern Latin “prosopographia,” from the Greek “prosōpon” meaning “face, person,” plus “-graphia,” meaning”‘writing.”
Did you Know?
British historian Lawrence Stone stated in a 1971 article that there was an “old” and “new” style of prosopography. Traditionally, it was most interested in well-known social elites, allowing a prosopography of a “power elite” to surface over time. By the 1970s, a “new” form of prosopography was concerned with wider populations of "ordinary people" who had some form of shared experiences and history. Genealogy is a popular hobby related to prosopography.
