MEMORY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Memory

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/mˈɛməri/ Listen

noun

Memory n. (pl. memories)

1.

The faculty of the mind by which it retains the knowledge of previous thoughts, impressions, or events. "Memory is the purveyor of reason."

2.

The reach and positiveness with which a person can remember; the strength and trustworthiness of one's power to reach and represent or to recall the past; as, his memory was never wrong.

3.

The actual and distinct retention and recognition of past ideas in the mind; remembrance; as, in memory of youth; memories of foreign lands.

4.

The time within which past events can be or are remembered; as, within the memory of man. "And what, before thy memory, was done From the begining."

5.

Something, or an aggregate of things, remembered; hence, character, conduct, etc., as preserved in remembrance, history, or tradition; posthumous fame; as, the war became only a memory. "The memory of the just is blessed." "That ever-living man of memory, Henry the Fifth." "The Nonconformists... have, as a body, always venerated her (Elizabeth's) memory."

6.

A memorial. (Obs.) "These weeds are memories of those worser hours."

Synonyms: Memory, Remembrance, Recollection, Reminiscence. Memory is the generic term, denoting the power by which we reproduce past impressions. Remembrance is an exercise of that power when things occur spontaneously to our thoughts. In recollection we make a distinct effort to collect again, or call back, what we know has been formerly in the mind. Reminiscence is intermediate between remembrance and recollection, being a conscious process of recalling past occurrences, but without that full and varied reference to particular things which characterizes recollection. "When an idea again recurs without the operation of the like object on the external sensory, it is remembrance; if it be sought after by the mind, and with pain and endeavor found, and brought again into view, it is recollection."

To draw to memory, to put on record; to record. (Obs.)

See images of 'Memory'

Etymology of 'Memory'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Memory" Quotes from Famous Books

... chair brought out so as to watch him working, and then her foot-stove, for her feet were freezing. She then began to chat with the painter, on all the recent births, deaths and marriages of which she had not heard, thus adding to the genealogical tree which she carried in her memory. ...

— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... in the chapel of the palace. After the celebration of the rite, the dauphin was carried into the chamber of his dying father, and seated upon the bed by his side. The poor king, dying in the prime of life, was oppressed with the profoundest melancholy. There was nothing in the memory of the past to give him pleasure; nothing in the future to inspire him with well-grounded hope. Turning to the little prince, who had just been christened with the ...

— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... is the principle involved. I have observed that you do not endeavour systematically to impress my requests on your mind. If you were to take due note of them at the time they are made, and say them aloud two or three times to yourself, they would not escape your memory. Forgetfulness is never an excuse in business, and I do not see why it should be at home.' 'O Charles!' I cried, 'do not talk about principles in such a trifle; I simply forgot. I should be more likely to forget my cloak than your coat.' He did not answer me, but opened a couple of letters, ...

— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... nature of the disease itself was such, and the infection was received so imperceptibly, that the most exact caution could not secure us while in the place. But I must be allowed to believe—and I have so many examples fresh in my memory to convince me of it, that I think none can resist their evidence—I say, I must be allowed to believe that no one in this whole nation ever received the sickness or infection but who received it in the ordinary way of infection from somebody, or the clothes or touch or stench of somebody ...

— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe

... it might take you to count five, Josiah stood there irresolute, Mary's fingers pulling him one way and the memory of poor Martha's ...

— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

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