monument

Pluralmonuments

Formsmonuments, monumenting, monumented

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A structure built to commemorate a person, event, or idea, or to serve as a memorial.

   The city commissioned a monument to remember its founding families.

   Tourists gather each morning at the marble monument in the square.

   Similarmemorial

   Note

   Behind every sense of the word sits Latin monumentum, "memorial," built on monēre, "to remind": a monument is first of all a reminder. In this physical sense it usually takes to for what is remembered and on or in for where it stands, as in a monument on the town green to the soldiers who died. What makes a structure a monument is the reminding it does, not its size.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A significant site held in common ownership by the community, such as a protected public landmark.

   Congress designated the desert region a national monument last year.

   The ancient forest was preserved as a community monument for future generations.

   Similarlandmark

3. 3
   nouncountable

   Something regarded as a lasting sign of exceptional achievement.

   The cathedral remains a monument to medieval craftsmanship.

   His decades of research became a monument to scientific patience.

   Similartestament, tribute

   Note

   Figurative and usually built with to: a railway line became "a monument to his drive and imagination," as Trains Illustrated put it in 1961. Of also occurs, and the phrase can turn ironic. Richard Marsh's The Beetle (1897) calls a run-down suburb "a living monument of the defeat of the speculative builder." What a monument commemorates need not be a triumph.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   An important burial vault or tomb, often built for a notable person.

   Archaeologists excavated a royal monument containing several stone coffins.

   The family commissioned an elaborate monument for the cemetery.

   Similartomb, mausoleum

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A marker placed at a grave, such as a headstone.

   The cemetery rows were lined with weathered granite monuments.

   She knelt to read the inscription on her grandmother's monument.

   Similarheadstone, gravestone, tombstone

6. 6
   nounBritishcountable

   A registered archaeological site or structure officially deemed historic and worthy of legal protection.

   The Department classified the Iron Age fort as a scheduled monument.

   Damaging a scheduled monument carries heavy penalties under British heritage law.

   Note

   A British legal category rather than a description. A site becomes a monument in this sense by being registered for protection, and the statutory phrase is scheduled monument. Use the full phrase when legal status matters, because the bare word still suggests a commemorative structure. An earthwork can qualify even though it was never built to remind anyone of anything.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A surviving record that preserves evidence of the past.

   The ancient text survives as a monument of a long-lost language.

   Her journals stand as a monument of everyday colonial life.

   Similarrecord, testament

   Note

   A philologist's sense, where the value of a surviving text lies in its age. Brachet and Toynbee (1896) call a fragment "the first written monument of the French language," and the 2018 handbook edited by Klein, Joseph and Fritz names "the earliest existing Slovak monument." The word keeps company with first, earliest and written, and it takes of with the name of a language.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A surveying reference point marked by a permanently fixed marker.

   The crew installed a brass monument to mark the township boundary.

   Each section corner was fixed by a concrete monument set deep in the ground.

   Similarmarker

9. 9
   nouncountable

   A natural or artificial object used as a reference point for orientation or measurement.

   Early explorers treated the distinctive peak as a monument for charting their route.

   The boulder functioned as a natural monument from which distances were measured.

   Similarlandmark

   Note

   Surveying's broadest use covers any object, natural or made, from which positions, bearings or distances are taken, such as a distinctive peak or a boulder. It differs from the permanently set survey marker because nothing has to be installed. The landmark only has to be adopted as a reference, and surveying prose usually makes clear which kind is meant.

10. 10
    verbtransitive

    To mark a place, or honor the memory of someone or something, by setting up a monument.

    Local leaders chose to monument the site of the historic signing.

    The battlefield was heavily monumented in the decades after the war, as each state raised a memorial to its own regiments.

    Similarcommemorate, memorialize

Showing meanings only. Show all 14