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• monument
  monument

  noun

  something erected in memory of a person, event, etc., as a building, pillar, or statue.
• Monument
  Monument

  noun

  a tall columnar building designed (1671) by Sir Christopher Wren to commemorate the Fire of London (1666), which destroyed a large part of the medieval city

monument

American  

[mon-yuh-muhnt, mon-yuh-ment] / ˈmɒn jə mənt, ˈmɒn jəˌmɛnt /

noun

• monuments
  plural

1. something erected in memory of a person, event, etc., as a building, pillar, or statue.

   the Washington Monument.

2. any building, megalith, etc., surviving from a past age, and regarded as of historical or archaeological importance.

3. any enduring evidence or notable example of something.

   a monument to human ingenuity.

4. an exemplar, model, or personification of some abstract quality, especially when considered to be beyond question.

   a monument of middle-class respectability.

5. an area or a site of interest to the public for its historical significance, great natural beauty, etc., preserved and maintained by a government.

6. a written tribute to a person, especially a posthumous one.

7. Surveying. an object, as a stone shaft, set in the ground to mark the boundaries of real estate or to mark a survey station.

8. a person considered as a heroic figure or of heroic proportions.

   He became a monument in his lifetime.

9. 1. Obsolete. a tomb; sepulcher.

   2. a statue.

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verb (used with object)

1. to build a monument or monuments to; commemorate.

   to monument the nation's war dead.

2. to build a monument on.

   to monument a famous site.

monument ¹ British  

/ ˈmɒnjʊmənt /

noun

1. an obelisk, statue, building, etc, erected in commemoration of a person or event or in celebration of something

2. a notable building or site, esp one preserved as public property

3. a tomb or tombstone

4. a literary or artistic work regarded as commemorative of its creator or a particular period

5. a boundary marker

6. an exceptional example

   his lecture was a monument of tedium

7. an obsolete word for statue

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Monument ² British  

/ ˈmɒnjʊmənt /

noun

1. a tall columnar building designed (1671) by Sir Christopher Wren to commemorate the Fire of London (1666), which destroyed a large part of the medieval city

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• monumentless
  adjective
• unmonumented
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• monuments
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of monument

1250–1300; Middle English < Latin monumentum, equivalent to mon- (stem of monēre to remind, warn) + -u- (variant of -i- -i- before labials) + -mentum -ment

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Explanation

A monument is a statue or other sculpture meant to honor a great person, like the Lincoln Monument or Washington Monument. You can find monuments in the downtown area of most cities. Many honor a specific person, while other are dedicated to soldiers who fought in a certain war, such as Vietnam or World War I. Cemeteries are also full of monuments, and monument can mean a type of burial vault. Whenever people create a monument, they're trying to make sure that a person or event is remembered.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

monument Monument monuments

The man Christopher Nolan calls the greatest filmmaker who ever lived now has his monument: “The Complete Kubrick,” a 30-disc, $600 boxed set of 4K Blu-Ray editions of all 13 features.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026

Celebrity Traitors: Can I visit the castle, ride the train and see the unusual monument?

From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026

The sculptor and his workmen look like miniature figures as they work on the 14-meter monument in honor of the pope, who is a Peruvian citizen.

From Barron's ● Sep. 26, 2026

“We have a special monument for our veterans and Tustin’s military community, and to have somebody come in and disrespect that ... it’s just sad,” Lumbard said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026

This strategy was partly successful in Mutal—not a single dated monument was erected in the city for a century.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

“He is increasingly playing the dual role of founder and diplomat,” said Joseph Hoefer, chief AI officer at lobbying firm Monument Advocacy, which represents tech companies but not Anthropic.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

All, however, steered well clear of the federal Ethiopian soldiers on guard at the university and the Tigray Martyrs Memorial Monument, which commemorates the TPLF's 16 years of struggle against the Marxist-Leninist Derg government.

From Barron's ● Oct. 4, 2026

Curbed dealmaking prompts more junior partners to quit larger firms and set up their own shops, according to Monument Group executives.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026

The payoff is a vanity project like no other, except maybe Saddam Hussein’s commissioned Victory Arch of swords in Baghdad, or Kim Il Sung’s North Korean Mansu Hill Grand Monument.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2026

It looks astonishingly like the White House in photographs, but larger and living, and beyond that, there’s the familiar tip of the Washington Monument, looking astonishingly like the Washington Monument in the books.

From "A Heart in a Body in the World" by Deb Caletti

Whatever their origins, these monuments, Mr. Warrack reminds us, are part of our shared human heritage; as their inheritors, it is our responsibility to understand and preserve them.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

"These next steps could help us better understand when the stones were moved and how these extraordinary monuments were constructed," Dr. Clarke said.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 9, 2026

"Unfortunately, the process of rewriting history is much bigger, much deeper. It's also the destruction of monuments," said Zhemkova.

From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026

Glyndŵr has since become a figurehead for Welsh nationalism and there are statues, monuments, pubs and street names across Wales commemorating him.

From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026

In the distance, floodlights began to light up the monuments and buildings of Washington.

From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston

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Related Words

• gravestone
• headstone
• marker
• masterpiece
• mausoleum
• pillar
• shrine
• slab
• statue
• stele
• stone
• tablet
• testament
• tomb
• tombstone
• tribute

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