Diary

A diary is a record (originally in handwritten format) with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone who keeps a diary is known as a diarist. Diaries undertaken for institutional purposes play a role in many aspects of human civilization, including government records (e.g., Hansard), business ledgers and military records.

Generally the term is today employed for personal diaries, normally intended to remain private or to have a limited circulation amongst friends or relatives. The word "journal" may be sometimes used for "diary," but generally a diary has (or intends to have) daily entries, whereas journal-writing can be less frequent.

Although a diary may provide information for a memoir, autobiography or biography, it is generally written not with the intention of being published as it stands, but for the author's own use. In recent years, however, there is internal evidence in some diaries (e.g., those of Ned Rorem, Alan Clark, Tony Benn or Simon Gray) that they are written with eventual publication in mind, with the intention of self-vindication (pre- or posthumous) or simply for profit.

By extension the term diary is also used to mean a printed publication of a written diary; and may also refer to other terms of journal including electronic formats (e.g., blogs).

Read more about Diary:  Etymology, History, Published Diaries, Internet Diaries, Fictional Diaries

Famous quotes containing the word diary:

    Most Gracious Queen, we thee implore
    To go away and sin no more,
    But if that effort be too great,
    To go away at any rate.
    —Anonymous. “On Queen Caroline,” in Diary and Correspondence of Lord Colchester (1861)

    The diary is an art form just as much as the novel or the play. The diary simply requires a greater canvas.
    Henry Miller (1891–1980)

    A diary is more or less the work of a man of clay whose hands are clumsy and in whose eyes there is no light.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)