diary
Pluraldiaries
Verbdiaries, diarying, diaried
Pluraldiaries
Formsdiaries, diarying, diaried
- 1A daily record of personal experiences and events, especially those of the person writing it.
He recorded his wartime experiences in a leather-bound diary.
Historians often rely on personal diaries to reconstruct everyday life.
Note
A record named for the day itself: Latin diārium, built on diēs "day", first meant a soldier's daily allowance and only later, in Late Latin, a daily record. Journal grew from the same word for day, which is why the two are near twins. The usual verb is keep (they kept separate diaries), and you write in a diary, whether it is on paper or on a hard drive.
- 2A book or organizer used to note appointments and plan upcoming days.
I'll pencil the meeting into my diary for Thursday.
Her diary was so full that she couldn't fit another client in.
Similaragenda
Note
Here the diary looks forward rather than back. In British and Canadian English it is where appointments go: you pencil a meeting into it, schools issue homework diaries, and a full diary means a crowded schedule. Agenda is its near synonym. Because the private journal shares the name, context does the sorting. Entries made in advance are plans, not memories.
- 3To record your daily experiences by keeping a journal or written log over time.
He prefers to diary at night, capturing the day's events while they are still fresh.
Many writers diary regularly to sharpen their powers of observation.
Similarjournal
Note
Turning the noun into a verb changes the spelling in a way worth knowing. Diaries and diaried swap the y for ie, while diarying keeps it. Used without an object, as when people simply diary at night, it suits reflective writing. In Hugh O'Donovan's Mindful Walking (2015), diarying sits beside mindful practice as a way to see what is going on.
Less common meaning
- 4Lasting only for the span of a single day.
The diary fever broke before the next sunrise, leaving the patient weak but alive.
the offer of a usurpation, though it were but as a diary ague
1605, Francis Bacon, a letter to the Lord ChancellorNote
A separate word that happens to share the spelling, taken from Latin diārius and describing something over within a day. Francis Bacon writes of "a diary ague" in 1605, meaning a fever that comes and goes in a day. The word has not survived, and it does not compare: a thing either lasts a day or it does not. Read it as "one-day", never as a journal.
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Origins
From Latin diārium, meaning a daily allowance for soldiers (and in Late Latin also 'diary'), from diēs ('a day'), which also gave us 'journal'. It is related to Spanish diario ('daily; diary').
From Latin diārius.