memento

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin mementō (“remember”), imperative form of meminī (“I remember”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /məˈmɛntoʊ/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -ɛntəʊ

Noun

memento (plural mementos or mementoes)

1. A keepsake; an object kept as a reminder of a place or event.

   I kept the shell as a memento of my visit to the seashore.

   • 1944 July and August, “London Railway Stations in 1893”, in Railway Magazine, page 201, taken from The English Illustrated Magazine of June 1893:

     In conclusion, I would remark that the great railway stations of London deserve to be visited every whit as much as St. Paul's Cathedral, the Abbey, or the Tower, and they are as worthy a memento of this century as those buildings are of the days that are gone.

   • 2011 December 16, Denis Campbell, “Hospital staff 'lack skills to cope with dementia patients'”, in Guardian‎:

     Many hospitals have not taken simple steps to lessen the distress and confusion which dementia sufferers' often feel on being somewhere so unfamiliar – such as making signs large and easy to read, using colour schemes to help patients find their way around unfamiliar wards and not putting family mementoes such as photographs nearby.

Usage notes

• The spelling momento is so common that some references now no longer consider it a misspelling.

Synonyms

• keepsake
• souvenir
• (plural): memorabilia

Related terms

Descendants

• → Japanese: メメント
• → Serbo-Croatian: memento
• → Marathi: मेमेटो (memeṭo)

Translations

References

• “memento”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present. (usage note)

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin mementō.

Noun

memento m (plural mementi)

1. memento, keepsake
2. warning

Further reading

• memento in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Anagrams

• tenemmo

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /meˈmen.toː/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /meˈmen.to/,

Verb

mementō

1. second-person singular future active imperative of meminī

References

• memento in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French mémento.

Noun

memento n (uncountable)

1. memento

Declension

Serbo-Croatian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /memento/
• Hyphenation: me‧men‧to

Noun

memento m (Cyrillic spelling мементо)

1. memento

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin mementō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /meˈmento/
• Rhymes: -ento
• Syllabification: me‧men‧to

Noun

memento m (plural mementos)

1. memento

Further reading

• “memento”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014