Reminiscent

How to spell reminiscent

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce reminiscent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does reminiscent mean?

1. adjectiveTending to bring something to mind through resemblance or association.

Reminiscent in a sentence

• The warm spices in the dish were reminiscent of her grandmother's kitchen.

• The hotel lobby was reminiscent of a grand old railway station.

Where does reminiscent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb reminisci, meaning 'to recall to mind' or 'to remember', which was built from re-, meaning 'again', and a root tied to mens 'mind' and memor 'mindful'. The Latin present participle reminiscent- described something in the act of remembering, and that is the form English adopted. The word entered English in the seventeenth century, at first describing a person given to recollection and later, more commonly, describing one thing that calls another to mind. The same mental family gives us 'memory', 'memorial' and 'reminisce', all rooted in the idea of holding something in the mind. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the quiet -sc- and the unstressed schwa vowels make it easy to drop a letter or double the wrong one.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• minisc (from Latin reminisci: to recall to mind, related to mens 'mind')
• -ent (adjective suffix)