recollection
Americannoun
-
recollections
plural
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the act or power of recollecting, or recalling to mind; remembrance.
-
something that is recollected.
recollections of one's childhood.
noun
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the act of recalling something from memory; the ability to remember
-
something remembered; a memory
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of recollection
1635–45; < French récollection or Medieval Latin recollēctiōn- (stem of recollēctiō ), equivalent to recollēct ( us ) ( see recollect) + -iōn- -ion
Explanation
Recollection is either the process of remembering something or a specific memory. If someone says, "To the best of my recollection, I never met Ted," they're saying they tried to remember Ted and couldn’t. Basically, your memory is your recollection. You can also say your memories are recollections. You could have a recollection of a baseball game on your birthday. If you know that collecting is to gather things, it makes sense that recollecting is like the process of gathering your memories.
Vocabulary lists containing recollection
The Cay
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The Things They Carried
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Farewell to Manzanar
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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:
Their sights seem to be set on perjury, seeking desperately to find inconsistencies in Smith’s recollection of his criminal investigations.
From Slate ● Sep. 29, 2026
“But from my recollection, we generally sit somewhere between the mid-50s to maybe the low 60s,” Lewis said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
New research suggests that this kind of recollection may involve more than the brain alone.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
While she recognised Nic and Beatrice, she thought her brother Sam was her uncle, and had no recollection of her beloved dog Raj, who died just before Christmas.
From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026
But by the turn of the century, lynchings were hardly the everyday occurrence that they are often considered in the public recollection.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
Then came an outpouring of recollections, anecdotes and tributes, from all corners of the internet.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
And slowly, as they spoke to their old classmates, other recollections emerged - the friends sharing their findings with each other on WhatsApp.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
His recollections also reveal how physically demanding it was to resume work after losing an arm.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 7, 2026
Mr. Riley skillfully selects recollections that highlight the staff’s uncertainty during the protracted postelection fight over Florida’s recount.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
Some studies relied on children’s fuzzy recollections of their parents’ income.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
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.
