Meanings
plural microhistories
- countableuncountableThe study of the past on a small scale, such as an individual neighborhood or town, as a case study for general trends.
The most celebrated works of microhistory are Carlo Ginzberg's The Cheese and the Worms, a difficult but very rewarding, if contentious, exploration of popular belief and the impact of literacy in sixteenth-century Italy[…]
2003, The New Zealand Journal of History, University of Auckland, page 451 more example
What is certain is that in “The Pattern in the Carpet,” Drabble eschews both chronology and raw autobiographical revelation for a more meandering approach that touches briefly on family pathology and private pain as it crisscrosses the centuries and unfolds the microhistory of jigsaw puzzles, an English invention, circa 1767.
2009 September 13, Daphne Merkin, “Dame of the British Interior”, in New York TimesAntonyms: macrohistory
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe study of the past on a small scale, such as an individual neighborhood or town, as a case study for general trends.
Origin
Translations
Catalan microhistòria
- microhistòriastudy of the past on a small scale
French microhistoire
- microhistoirestudy of the past on a small scale
German Mikrogeschichte
- Mikrogeschichtestudy of the past on a small scale
Greek μικροϊστορία
- μικροϊστορία (mikroïstoría)study of the past on a small scale
Italian microstoria
- microstoriastudy of the past on a small scale
Portuguese micro-história
- micro-históriastudy of the past on a small scale
Spanish microhistoria
- microhistoriastudy of the past on a small scale
Cite this entry
microhistory. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/microhistory
“microhistory.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/microhistory. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “microhistory,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/microhistory.
Source: microhistory on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.