Autograph

How to spell autograph

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce autograph

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does autograph mean?

1. nounA person's own handwritten signature, especially that of a celebrity kept as a souvenir.
2. verbTo write one's own signature on something, especially for an admirer.

Autograph in a sentence

• noun

  The young fan asked the footballer for an autograph after the match.

• verb

  The author agreed to autograph copies of her book at the shop.

• noun

  A signed first edition with the novelist's autograph sold for a small fortune.

• verb

  Players will autograph shirts for charity before the game.

Where does autograph come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word is built from two Greek elements: autos, meaning 'self', and graphein, meaning 'to write'. Put together, an autograph is literally something written 'by one's own hand', which is exactly what a signature is. The compound reached English in the early 1600s, partly through Latin autographum and French autographe, and at first it often meant a document or manuscript written in the author's own hand rather than copied by a scribe. From there the sense narrowed to the familiar one: a famous person's handwritten signature collected as a keepsake. The same autos turns up in 'automatic', 'autonomy' and 'autobiography', while graphein gives us 'paragraph', 'photograph' and 'graphic', so the spelling trap is really just remembering that the ending keeps the Greek 'ph' rather than an 'f'.

How the word is built

• auto- (self)
• graph (write)