keepsake
Americannoun
-
keepsakes
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of keepsake
Explanation
A keepsake is an object that has sentimental value, like a locket that belonged to your grandmother. In one of the Batman movies, Bruce Wayne keeps the pearls his mother wore the day she was murdered. Those pearls are a keepsake: something that has great meaning because of its association with a person. Many parents keep pictures their kids drew as keepsakes. If you loved a job, you might have a keepsake from it. Souvenirs from fun vacations are keepsakes. A keepsake is something we keep for the sake of the people and events we want to always remember.
Vocabulary lists containing keepsake
Crenshaw
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Free Lunch
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Charlotte's Web
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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:
What film keepsake do you wish you had?
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026
Hurt and in desperate need of her friend, Andie goes to see Iona to ask for her ruffly pink prom dress, a keepsake she promised Andie if ever she wanted it.
From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2026
When the next mission to the International Space Station blasts off from Florida next week, a special keepsake will be hitching a ride: a small stuffed rabbit.
From Barron's ● Feb. 8, 2026
They claimed it made it "the most unique t-shirt and medal in Great North Run history, a keepsake that we'll be talking about in 44 years' time".
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2025
I was drifting off to sleep when I remembered my keepsake bag.
From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool
She said she wanted to leave the bags as "keepsakes" for her children and grandchildren.
From BBC ● May 21, 2026
Nearby were more family artifacts: photographs, keepsakes, fragments of lives divided across borders.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2026
Don eventually remarried and had three more kids, but he held on to a big box of Cynthia’s clothes and other keepsakes, including a lock of hair and bottle of her perfume.
From Slate ● Apr. 6, 2026
The novel emerged as he began writing about the objects he had saved, everything from family keepsakes to trinkets picked up at the bazaars, which gradually brought his characters to life.
From Barron's ● Feb. 13, 2026
I slipped the map and keepsakes back into the Lucky Bill box.
From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool
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.
