memorial

USmuh-MOR-ee-uhl/məˈmɔːɹi.əl/

9 meanings of memorial

1
nouncountable
An object or structure, such as a monument, that serves to keep the memory of a person or event alive.
A granite memorial in the park honors the firefighters lost in the blaze.
Thousands gathered downtown to dedicate the new memorial.
Similarmonument, shrine
Note
Not every memorial is carved. In "A Last Journey on the Chichester-Midhurst Line" (1953), H. M. Madgwick sets memory against memorial. Those who knew the branch line keep an ineffaceable memory, while those who come after inherit embankment, cutting and tunnel. Memory lives in people, and a memorial is the lasting outward thing. Walter Arthur Copinger's The Law of Copyright (1870) pairs memorials with mementoes in discussing sculpted monuments.
2
adjective
Serving to keep the memory of a person or event alive; commemorative.
A memorial plaque was mounted near the entrance to honor the founders.
The city set aside a memorial day for those who perished in the flood.
Similarcommemorative
Note
An adjective that normally sits before its noun, as in a memorial building or a memorial plaque. Older verse lets it follow the noun and take of. Pope's Odyssey of 1725 has the oar fixed high in air, "memorial of my name." That pattern now reads as poetic. In ordinary prose, put memorial before the noun, or use commemorative.
3
nouncountable
A religious service held to remember and honor a person who has died.
The parish held a memorial for the departed on All Souls' Day.
Friends gathered at the chapel for a quiet memorial after the burial.
Similarservice, commemoration
Note
Church usage makes the word an event rather than an object: a service held to remember the dead, chiefly in Christian settings. The verbs show the difference. You hold or attend a memorial in this sense, but you visit or dedicate the monument kind. Such services may fall on the anniversary of a death or at fixed points in the liturgical calendar.
4
nouncountable
A written account of events or of a person's life; a chronicle or memoir.
His memorial of the polar expedition became a valued historical source.
The abbey kept detailed memorials of each abbot's tenure.
Similarchronicle, account, record, memoir
5
nouncountable
A written statement of facts presented as a petition to an authority such as a court, tribunal, or government.
The merchants drafted a memorial to the crown protesting the trade restrictions.
The committee submitted a memorial setting out the facts of the boundary dispute.
Similarpetition
Note
A petition that leads with facts: the writer sets out what happened, then asks for a decision. The usual verb is address. In William Hickey's Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Captain Surman "addressed a memorial to the governor." He explained that Providence had driven him into port and trusted he would be allowed to refit and depart. Courts, tribunals, sovereigns and governments are the typical recipients.
6
adjective
Held in the memory; retained in the mind rather than on paper.
Her account of the ceremony was entirely memorial, drawn from recollection alone.
Among oral cultures, vast genealogies remained memorial, passed from elder to elder.

Less common meanings

7
nounarchaic
A short note or memorandum written and kept as a reminder.
The clerk pinned a memorial to the ledger reminding him of the debt.
He jotted a quick memorial of the day's appointments before leaving.
Note
A sense that has slipped out of everyday English: a jotted reminder, kept so that something is not forgotten. It is archaic and now rare, so in older papers it can be read simply as a note or memorandum. In current writing, choose one of those words instead. Used this way, memorial invites confusion with the formal petition.
8
adjectivearchaic
Serving to assist the memory; mnemonic.
Students relied on memorial verses to fix the grammar rules in their minds.
This succession of Aspirate, Soft, and Hard, may be expressed by the memorial word ASH.
1887, Walter William Skeat, Principles of English Etymology
Note
Here the word means "helping you remember," the job mnemonic does now. Walter William Skeat used it in 1887 for the memorial word ASH, which stands for Aspirate, Soft and Hard. The sense is archaic. A modern writer would say mnemonic or memory aid, since readers will take memorial before a noun as the commemorative adjective.
9
nounobsolete
The faculty or act of remembering; memory or recollection.
Note
The word's Latin roots show most plainly here. It comes from Late Latin memoriale, the neuter of memorialis, and amounts to memory plus -ial. In this sense it names the act of remembering itself, not any object that prompts it. This use is now obsolete. In present-day writing, say memory or recollection, and keep memorial for the thing that reminds.

Practice

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Origin

From Late Latin memoriale, the neuter form of memorialis. By surface analysis it can be seen as 'memory' plus the suffix '-ial'.