# documentary

Pronunciation: US say "dok-yuh-MEN-tuh-ree" /ˌdɑ.kjəˈmɛn.tə.ɹi/; UK say "dok-yuu-MEN-tree" /ˌdɒk.jʊˈmɛn.tɹi/

## Noun

1. A film, television program, or publication that presents a social, political, scientific, or historical subject in a factual, informative way.
   - Simple: A film or TV show that gives real facts about a subject like history, science, or society.
   - _She directed a documentary on the history of jazz in New Orleans._
   - _The new documentary examines climate change through interviews with leading scientists._
4. Factual films, programs, and publications considered collectively as a genre.
   - Simple: Films and shows that tell about real things, thought of together as one kind of movie.
   - _He has worked in documentary for more than twenty years._
   - _Modern documentary often blends candid interviews with archival footage._

## Adjective

2. Serving to record or illustrate a subject.
   - Simple: Made to record or show what something is really like.
   - _Her documentary photography captures the daily lives of factory workers._
   - _The series adopts a documentary style that records the routines of hospital nurses._
3. Relating to documents, or based on the information that written documents and records contain.
   - Simple: Based on written papers or records.
   - _The historian relied on documentary sources held in the royal archives._
   - _Documentary evidence confirmed the original boundaries of the estate._
5. Factual in content and objective in presentation, with nothing invented.
   - Simple: Showing real facts only, with nothing made up added in.
   - _The novel's documentary passages report the trial verbatim, free of invention._
   - _He chose a documentary treatment, recording events exactly as they occurred._

## Origin

From the French adjective (and later noun) documentaire, formed from document, which comes from Latin documentum; equivalent to document plus the suffix -ary.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/documentary (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).