Remembering

How to spell remembering

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce remembering

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does remembering mean?

1. verbBringing something back to mind or keeping it in one's awareness.

Remembering in a sentence

• Remembering her birthday each year is something he takes pride in.

• Remembering the new password took her several frustrating days.

Where does remembering come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb rememorari, meaning 'to call to mind again', which combined the prefix re- ('again') with memor, an adjective meaning 'mindful' or 'keeping in mind'. That same memor root gives us 'memory' and 'memorial', so the family resemblance is no accident. The verb passed into Old French as remembrer and arrived in English in the 1200s as 'remembren', already carrying the modern sense of holding something in the mind or bringing it back to thought. The present participle 'remembering' simply adds the -ing ending to that long-established stem. A useful spelling cue is hidden in plain sight: the word literally contains 'member', so a writer who pictures the 'member' inside it is unlikely to drop the silent-feeling middle 'b' or the second 'm'.

How the word is built

• re- (again, intensive)
• member (from Latin memor: mindful)
• -ing (present participle suffix)