memorise

UK/ˈmɛm.əˌɹaɪ̯z/US/ˈmɛm.əˌɹaɪ̯z/

verbB1+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,721 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: memorised, memorising

To memorise something is to learn it so thoroughly that you can repeat it exactly. A poem, a part, a long number.

This is the British spelling with an s, and American English writes it with a z, and both are correct in either country. The word is about deliberate work, which separates it from simply remembering. Actors, musicians and medical students do a great deal of it. The related noun is memory, and rote learning is the name for memorising without understanding, which teachers argue about endlessly.

Definitions of memorise

1verbmemoriseTo learn something so that it can be repeated from memory.B1+
“He had memorised every line before the first rehearsal.”

Also accepted in games: memorize

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Thinking & Memory

First appears in chapter 15 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

memorise in the wild

Roycroft suggested to count one for a white piece and three for a black piece in order to make the code easier to memorise.
GBR code
To memorise numbers, O'Brien developed the mnemonic Dominic system, which is similar to the Major System.
Dominic O'Brien
Such a computer can typically memorise 9 or more different rations and 99 or more ingredients.
Mixer-wagon
The story is about a little boy who tries to memorise a list of groceries his mother has asked him to buy.
Don't Forget the Bacon!
Clock-face schedules are easy for passengers to memorise because departure and arrival times occur at consistent intervals, repeating during the day.
Clock-face scheduling

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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.

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