collective memory

American  

noun

1. a memory or memories shared or recollected by a group, as a community or culture.

2. any collection of memories passed from one generation to the next.

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collective memory British  

noun

1. the shared memories of a group, family, race, etc

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Example Sentences

"It was a minor event for Neauphle-le-Chateau, even if it's part of our collective memory, whether we like it or not."

From Barron's

Bellowing "Silence, everyone!" to terrified parliamentarians, the man with a bushy moustache and shiny tricorn quickly caught the public's attention in an image engraved on the nation's collective memory.

From Barron's

The notion of Camelot in the nation’s collective memory represents, as Jacqueline Kennedy intended when she conjured it for Life magazine journalist Theodore H. White in the days after her husband’s assassination, an era of charisma, glamour and vigor that revolutionized American politics.

From Salon

The event, known as the Nakba, vividly lives on in Palestinian collective memory, and camp residents like Irhil fear the history of displacement -- which many also thought would be temporary in 1948 -- will repeat itself.

From Barron's

Historians are divided, with Athens' Benaki Museum's head archivist Tasos Sakellaropoulos calling the tomb a "place of silent collective memory and respect, not of pain or anger" in Kathimerini daily.

From Barron's