Memorie

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A written or recorded account of events, experiences, or a person's life presented from a personal perspective
2. A historical narrative or autobiographical work that documents significant moments and experiences in chronological order
3. An account of someone's life or notable events told in the author's own voice and recollection

Etymology: The spelling "memorie" is simply an older form of "memory," and the word's path into English runs through Anglo-Norman and Old French before reaching back to Latin "memoria," meaning "the faculty of remembering" but also "a historical account." That second sense is a useful clue: in Latin, remembering and recording were close relatives, and the same root gave English both "memory" and "memoir," which entered the language from French as a doublet of the same source. English once had its own words for this faculty. Old English "myne," which survives today as "min," and "gemynd" both covered the sense of remembering, but "gemynd" gradually shifted toward meaning the mind itself, so the modern word "mind" is descended from it. The Latin-derived term eventually displaced the native vocabulary for memory, leaving the old word to take on a different role. The Latin root "memor," meaning "mindful," goes back to a reconstructed Indo-European base, *(s)mer-, which also produced the Greek "mnēmē" and the Old English "gemimor," a close cousin of the same idea.