forgetting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of forget.

   Forgetting an old friend's birthday left her feeling guilty for days.

   He was constantly forgetting the names of new colleagues.

   Note

   Two jobs share one spelling here: the participle of the progressive (he was forgetting names) and the gerund, which heads a noun phrase yet still takes a direct object (forgetting a birthday). That bare object is the quickest way to tell it from the noun for memory loss, which needs of before what is lost. Every use of forget carries over, from losing a memory to neglecting a task or leaving keys behind.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The mental act or process by which something once held in mind passes out of memory.

   Like a path through grass that disappears once people stop walking it.

   The forgetting of traumatic events can be a protective response of the mind.

   Researchers study how the forgetting of unused information frees up mental resources.

   Oppositeremembering, recall, retention

   Note

   Countable as well as abstract: in the plural it names distinct lapses, often on a scale larger than one mind. Oliver Sacks, in Awakenings (1973), asks how an illness could be forgotten anew by each generation and calls such forgettings "as dangerous as they are mysterious." The plural suits reflective, essayistic prose, where Richard Doyle's On Beyond Living (1997) sets forgettings beside limits and deaths as part of the human story.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2