memoir

[mem-wahr, -wawr]

noun

1. a record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation.

2. Usually memoirs.

   1. an account of one's personal life and experiences; autobiography.

   2. the published record of the proceedings of a group or organization, as of a learned society.

3. a biography or biographical sketch.

memoir

/ ˈmɛmwɑː /

noun

1. a biography or historical account, esp one based on personal knowledge

2. an essay or monograph, as on a specialized topic

3. obsolete,  a memorandum

Other Word Forms

• memoirist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of memoir¹

First recorded in 1560–70; from French mémoire, from Latin memoria; memory

Word History and Origins

Origin of memoir¹

C16: from French, from Latin memoria _memory

Example Sentences

John Check on an accompanist’s memoir, a life of film composer John Williams and more reading gifts for music lovers.

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But Dillon’s memoir, as the author notes, was also rife with fictions.

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“It wasn’t just any cake tin. It was the heart-shaped tin I had used to bake my own wedding cake,” Ms. Wilson, a British chef and food author, explains in her wise, engaging memoir.

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“Ambigrammia” includes several hundred of them, mixed in with episodes of memoir and thoughts about creativity.

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“I read and reread Thucydides,” the British novelist and politician John Buchan recalled in his memoir of World War I, “for he also had lived among crumbling institutions.”

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Related Words

• account 
• anecdote 
• autobiography 
• biography 
• chronicle 
• diary 
• essay 
• journal 
• life 
• life story www.thesaurus.com
• memory 
• narrative 
• note 
• recollection 
• reminiscence 
• thesis 
• treatise