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memoir

UK/ˈmɛmˌwɑː/US/ˈmɛmˌwɑɹ/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,090 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: memoirs

A memoir is an account of events written from your own life. Write a memoir, a political memoir, a memoir of the war.

It differs from an autobiography by scope: a memoir covers a part of a life or a theme rather than the whole run of it. The French means memory, and memory and memoir are the same word twice.

Definitions of memoir

  1. 1nounmemoirAn account of events written from your own life.C1

    “In her memoir, she describes growing up poor on a farm in the 1950s.”

memoir is a book.

Where it comes from

French memoire comes from Latin memoria, memory; memory is a doublet.

  1. French

    mémoire

  2. English, today

    memoir

Borrowed from French mémoire. a doublet of memoria and memory.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

memoir in the wild

  • Kelly is also the author of her memoir Tell Me Everything: A Memoir, which became a New York Times Best Seller.

    Minka Kelly

  • Audible awarded it for Best Celebrity Memoir of 2023, where she narrated the memoir herself.

    Minka Kelly

  • Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics is a memoir by then-Senator from Delaware Joe Biden.

    Promises to Keep (memoir)

  • A Promised Land is a memoir by Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017.

    A Promised Land

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

the mémoire family

memory

memoir — used about once every 18,318 pages · #13,090 · point at the bar for the others