memento mori
Americannoun
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(italics) remember that you must die.
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an object, as a skull, serving as a reminder of death or mortality.
noun
Usage
What does memento mori mean? Memento mori is a Latin phrase that translates to "remember you must die."A memento mori is something, historically a skull, that serves as a reminder of death and mortality.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of memento mori
First recorded in 1585–95, memento mori is from Latin mementō morī
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
With "Memento Mori," the group's latest compositions, in their own words, run "the gamut from paranoia and obsession to catharsis and joy."
From Salon • Mar. 25, 2023
As a conceptual painter interested in the Vanitas and Memento Mori styles of painting, he was drawn to the subject’s aesthetic simplicity and the complicated, fraught history.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 3, 2023
A short-sleeved shirt reveals a tattoo of a large cross on his forearm bracketed by the words Tempus Fugit Memento Mori.
From Washington Post • Mar. 11, 2016
An unsympathetic character in Memento Mori called Eric has evidently written two dispiriting works of this kind. itself was an utterly different and virtually unprecedented kind of novel.
From The Guardian • Jun. 4, 2010
"I bid you," retorted father, "Memento Mori Æris, and I wish you woulde take as goode care to provide for ye one as I do for the other."
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol III, No 13, 1851 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
