Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

commemorative

adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,129 of 15,258mostly written

Commemorative means made to keep the memory of a person or event. A commemorative stamp, a commemorative plaque, commemorative coins.

Post offices and mints live on them: a commemorative issue is sold to be kept rather than used, which is the whole business model. A commemorative plaque is the modest version, and Britain's blue ones mark where somebody lived.

Definitions of commemorative

  1. 1adjectivecommemorativeMade to keep the memory of a person or event.C1

    “The mint issued a commemorative coin to mark the king's coronation.”

commemorative is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin commemorare means to call to mind, from com- plus memor, mindful.

  1. New Latin

    commemorātīvus

  2. English, today

    commemorative

1612; New Latin commemorātīvus, from commemorō. by surface analysis, commemorate + -ive, cognate with French commémoratif.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

commemorative in the wild

  • Many postal services issue several commemorative stamps each year, sometimes holding first day of issue ceremonies at locations connected with the subjects.

    Commemorative stamp

  • The United States Mint has minted numerous commemorative coins to commemorate persons, places, events, and institutions since 1848.

    United States commemorative coins

  • The mint also produces commemorative medals, which are similar to coins but do not have a face value, and therefore are not legal tender.

    United States commemorative coins

  • Most modern plaques affixed in this way are commemorative of something, but not all.

    Commemorative plaque

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

  • commemorate