Bio is short for biography, a written account of someone's life. On social media it means the short piece of profile text that says who you are, the about me section on an Instagram profile, for example.
It has two other everyday uses as well, biology and the prefix bio-, so here are all of them.
Bio as in biography
Dictionary.com lists bio as short for biography, and defines a biography as a written account of a person's life, usually by someone else.
That last part is the interesting bit. A traditional biography is somebody else telling your story. The social media kind flips it: Wiktionary notes the profile bio is often customisable by the user, so it's the one biography you usually get to write yourself.
Your bio on a social profile
I'll keep this short, because the social sense rests on one dictionary entry. Wiktionary describes it as a short section of a user profile with information about the user, the about me section, and its example is checking out someone's bio on Instagram. Dictionary.com, Cambridge and Oxford Learner's don't list it separately, and I haven't checked platform rules such as length limits for this page.
For the practical side, here's how to go about editing your Instagram bio and how to write a bio that gets follows. Bio isn't the only plain word with a profile meaning, either: a carousel on Instagram is another.
Biology, and the prefix bio-
Dictionary.com also lists bio as a clipping of biology, the school subject. As a prefix, bio- means life, from the Greek bios. Cambridge defines it as connected with life and living things, with bioethics and biodiversity as examples.
Oxford Learner's gives bio- as relating to living things or human life, and lists biography itself as one example. So the short word and the prefix point back to the same Greek word for life.
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How I'd read it in context
Let the setting decide. On a profile, bio means the about-me text. On a book or a speaker page, it's a biography. On a timetable it's biology. And on the front of another word, bio- means life. You'll rarely need to guess once you look at where the word is sitting.
Bio: quick answers
What does bio mean on Instagram?
The short profile text about a user, the about me section.
Is bio short for biography?
Yes. Dictionary.com lists bio as short for biography.
What does the prefix bio mean?
Life, from Greek bios.
