Memorize

How to spell memorize

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce memorize

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does memorize mean?

1. verbTo learn something thoroughly so that it can be recalled exactly from memory.

Memorize in a sentence

• Actors must memorize every line before the first rehearsal.

• She tried to memorize the long string of account numbers.

Where does memorize come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This verb traces back to the Latin adjective memor, meaning 'mindful' or 'remembering', the same root that gave us 'memory', 'memorial', and 'memorandum'. From memor the Latins built memoria, the noun for the faculty of recollection, and English drew on that family to coin 'memorize' in the late 1500s, attaching the productive ending -ize (from Greek -izein, which forms verbs meaning 'to make or do'). The original sense was broad, 'to make memorable' or 'to record so as to be remembered', but by the 1800s it settled into the modern meaning of committing something to one's own memory deliberately. The choice of -ize over -ise reflects the suffix's Greek pedigree, which is why this spelling is fully standard on both sides of the Atlantic. Remembering that the heart of the word is memor, the same chunk seen in 'memory', helps keep the middle vowel from drifting.

How the word is built

• memor- (from Latin memor: mindful, remembering)
• -ize (verb-forming suffix)

British and American spelling

Memorize is the American spelling. British English spells it memorise.