Memory

How to spell memory

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce memory

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does memory mean?

1. nounThe mental faculty of storing and recalling past experiences, or a particular thing that is recalled.
2. nounThe part of a computer that stores data and instructions for immediate use.

Memory in a sentence

• She has a remarkable memory for names and faces.

• The laptop ran slowly because it was low on memory.

• The smell of fresh bread brought back a childhood memory.

• Adding more memory made the editing software far quicker.

Where does memory come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin memor, meaning 'mindful' or 'remembering', from which Latin formed the noun memoria, 'the faculty of remembering' or 'a recollection'. English took the word through Old French memorie in the 1300s, and it kept its core sense of the mind's capacity to retain and recall the past. The same Latin root sits behind a whole family of familiar words, including 'memorial', 'memorise', and even 'remember', which packs the prefix re- onto the same stem. In the twentieth century the word was naturally extended to computing, where it describes the hardware that stores data, an electronic echo of the human faculty. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle syllable, the faint schwa in mem-O-ry that writers can drop entirely, and the single m's that sit either side of it.

How the word is built

• memor- (from Latin memor: mindful, remembering)
• -y (noun suffix)