Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An account of the personal experiences of an author.
  • noun An autobiography.
  • noun A biography or biographical sketch.
  • noun A report, especially on a scientific or scholarly topic.
  • noun The report of the proceedings of a learned society.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A note of something to be remembered; a memorandum.
  • noun A notice or an essay relating to something within the writer's own memory or knowledge; a record of facts upon a subject personally known or investigated; a concise account of one's knowledge or information on any topic; especially, a communication to a society containing such information: as, the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences.
  • noun plural A narrative of the facts or events of some phase of history or in the life of a person, written from personal knowledge or observation; a history or narrative dwelling chiefly upon points about which the writer is specially informed, as an autobiography or a continuous record of observations.
  • noun In a restricted use, a biography; a memorial volume or work containing notices of the life and character of some one deceased, with extracts from his (or her) correspondence, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A memorial account; a history composed from personal experience and memory; an account of transactions or events (usually written in familiar style) as they are remembered by the writer. See history, 2.
  • noun A memorial of any individual; a biography; often, a biography written without special regard to method and completeness.
  • noun An account of something deemed noteworthy; an essay; a record of investigations of any subject; the journals and proceedings of a society.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An autobiography; a book describing the personal experiences of an author.
  • noun Any form of narrative describing the personal experiences of a writer.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an account of the author's personal experiences
  • noun an essay on a scientific or scholarly topic

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French mémoire, from Old French memoire, memory, from Latin memoria; see memory.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French mémoire ("memoir"), from Latin memoria ("memory"); see memory.

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Examples

  • In the title memoir, Maurer reflects that "blindness must be confronted in unconventional ways if progress in surmounting its disadvantages is to be made."

    Fred's Head from APH 2010

  • I wrote these weird essay-ish short stories, and with the encouragement of my teacher, David Shields if you want to read the most mind-exploding expose of life in the borderlands between fiction and memoir, read his book Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, I continued to blunder through-not assigning the word "memoir" to my work until 2001 when Brain, Child magazine published a long piece of mine about my family called "Women Like That, Like Us."

    Theo Pauline Nestor: James Frey Took the Memoir Bullet Theo Pauline Nestor 2011

  • The most frustrating aspect of the memoir is her essential but underlying trajectory from someone who was frustrated and disappointed in her life, to someone who finally achieved what she wanted.

    From Blog to Book « Tales from the Reading Room 2009

  • I wrote these weird essay-ish short stories, and with the encouragement of my teacher, David Shields if you want to read the most mind-exploding expose of life in the borderlands between fiction and memoir, read his book Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, I continued to blunder through-not assigning the word "memoir" to my work until 2001 when Brain, Child magazine published a long piece of mine about my family called "Women Like That, Like Us."

    Theo Pauline Nestor: James Frey Took the Memoir Bullet Theo Pauline Nestor 2011

  • This memoir is a reminder; lives do change in a blink of an eye.

    Archive 2008-01-01 ____Maggie 2008

  • This memoir is a reminder; lives do change in a blink of an eye.

    The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (copy) ____Maggie 2008

  • But this memoir is a different species entirely from the normal rags-to-riches tale of a big-screen leading man or woman - it's the life of Cheeta the chimpanzee.

    The Biography We've Been Waiting For Bill Crider 2008

  • This memoir is an eye opener to the mysteries surrounding polio patients and their struggles.

    Warm Springs (copy) ____Maggie 2007

  • This memoir is an eye opener to the mysteries surrounding polio patients and their struggles.

    Archive 2007-11-01 ____Maggie 2007

  • The stunning thing in this memoir is the talk about the appreciation of beauty, hope, joy, happiness, etc ¦. in the camps!

    Books Most Important to You 2006

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