memorialize
Americanverb (used with object)
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memorializes,
present (3rd person singular)
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memorialized,
past participle, past
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memorializing
present participle
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to commemorate.
-
to present a memorial to.
verb
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to honour or commemorate
-
to present or address a memorial to
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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memorializesimple
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memorializessimple
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have memorializedperfect
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has memorializedperfect
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am memorializingprogressive
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are memorializingprogressive
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is memorializingprogressive
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have been memorializingperfect progressive
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has been memorializingperfect progressive
Past
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memorializedsimple
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had memorializedperfect
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was memorializingprogressive
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were memorializingprogressive
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had been memorializingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of memorialize
Explanation
When you memorialize something, you honor it or do something so it will be remembered. If you want to remember a summer trip taken with friends, you could make a photo album full of the pictures you took to memorialize it. The word memorialize often is used in relation to someone or something that has passed away or even to a group of connected individuals who have perished. You might see a monument, for example, that memorializes victims of an earthquake, meaning pays tribute to them. You can also memorialize someone in a speech, meaning you tell about the person's life and describe how he or she has affected others.
Vocabulary lists containing memorialize
Total Recall: Mem
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Vocabulary Video Contest (2013) - List 1
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2014 Vocabulary Video Contest (M-Z)
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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.
See Examples For:
Borza spent 20 years championing nearly every effort to memorialize the passengers and crew members who stormed the cockpit, preventing the hijackers from reaching Washington, D.C., and their presumed target, the Capitol.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026
“We Are Charlie Kirk,” an A.I. song originally meant to memorialize him, was immediately reappropriated as a joke.
From Salon ● Sep. 8, 2026
In most cases, participants only filed “brief” statements about their trips, but otherwise failed to “document or memorialize key takeaways, practical applications, or potential benefits to the Department,” the report said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 7, 2026
In the belly of a whale at a jazz venue in Little Tokyo, early 2014, I gathered with Fred Moten, Kima Jones and others to memorialize Amiri Baraka a week or so after his death.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 28, 2026
Thought they'd be tripping over themselves to memorialize one of their own.
From "How It Went Down" by Kekla Magoon
Hargitay has had a great run recently: Earlier this month, she won two Emmys for her self-directed 2025 documentary, “My Mom Jayne,” which memorializes her mother, Jayne Mansfield.
From Salon ● Sep. 15, 2026
The Fitzwilliam Museum’s moving “War Craft” exhibition memorializes a unique popular art, rough-hewn from found objects and made by men killing time in the field or, afterward, as souvenirs of survival.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
And near Marsden Wharf, a sidewalk mosaic memorializes the ship and Fernando Pereira.
From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2025
Then the Virgin Mary, in a voice brimming with anguish and outrage, memorializes the student protesters who were massacred by Mexican armed forces in 1968.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 18, 2024
For this reason Christmas is an institution which memorializes the best there was in Pagan man.
From The Truth about Jesus : Is He a Myth? by M. M. (Mangasar Mugurditch) Mangasarian
In Dokoupil’s first months on the job, the show’s gaffes have been memorialized in news reports.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026
The tower was also memorialized in the cartoon “Family Guy” — “which blew all our minds.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 10, 2026
Their faces are pasted on walls and lampposts across Mexico, and demonstrators regularly hoist banners demanding the return of loved ones whose names are memorialized in chants.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 6, 2026
As I recently wrote, he is only concerned with how he will be memorialized.
From Salon ● Apr. 5, 2026
Next time I will bring the video camera, so his stories will be memorialized forever.
From "Finding Junie Kim" by Ellen Oh
El-Sayed’s campaign had already released a video condemning and memorializing 9/11 that morning.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
During the meal, she asked Honda to rehearse with her and her son, Sean Lennon, before they performed at a concert memorializing the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2026
Throughout his time here, he painted whenever he could, memorializing the lakes, forests and mountains that surrounded him.
From Salon ● May 2, 2026
In the northern city of Zanjan, thousands responded to chants memorializing the late Khamenei with the refrain: “We’re your followers, Seyyed Mojtaba,” using an honorific denoting a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 9, 2026
Oppenheimer, writing for the group, dispatched to Washington a dispirited one-page memo on June 16 memorializing their conclusion.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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.
