1
: an official note or report : memorandum
2
a
: a narrative composed from personal experience
Every memoir reminds us of the faraway and long ago, of loss and change, of persons and places beyond recall …—
Abigail McCarthy
Abigail McCarthy
b
: autobiography
—usually used in plural
His memoirs recall his student days at Harvard.
c
: biography
his memoir of his longtime friend
3
a
: an account of something noteworthy : report
The work described and discussed in this memoir represents a first-class investigation.—J. A. Steers
J. A. Steers
b
memoirs plural
: the record of the proceedings of a learned society
Examples of memoir in a Sentence
a retired politician who is writing his memoirs
He has written a memoir of his mother.
a memoir of Hollywood in the 1930s
Recent Examples on the Web
A lot of times, much of a Hollywood memoir is someone saying this person screwed me over, this bad thing happened, and so on.
—Vinson Cunningham, New Yorker, 29 Mar. 2026
And 2026 is already off to a bright start, with a buzzy debut novel from Jennette McCurdy, plenty of celebrity memoirs and sci-fi spectaculars.
—Clare Mulroy, USA Today, 28 Mar. 2026
Publishes her memoirs, Shocking Life.
—Laird Borrelli-Persson, Vogue, 28 Mar. 2026
Based on the memoirs of Juan Pablo Escobar, son of the legendary Colombian drug lord, Dear Killer Nannies is a Spanish-language series that puts a very different spin on the coming-of-age genre.
—K. Thor Jensen, PC Magazine, 27 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for memoir
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Vinson Cunningham, New Yorker, 29 Mar. 2026
And 2026 is already off to a bright start, with a buzzy debut novel from Jennette McCurdy, plenty of celebrity memoirs and sci-fi spectaculars.
—Clare Mulroy, USA Today, 28 Mar. 2026
Publishes her memoirs, Shocking Life.
—Laird Borrelli-Persson, Vogue, 28 Mar. 2026
Based on the memoirs of Juan Pablo Escobar, son of the legendary Colombian drug lord, Dear Killer Nannies is a Spanish-language series that puts a very different spin on the coming-of-age genre.
—K. Thor Jensen, PC Magazine, 27 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for memoir
Cite this Entry
“Memoir.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/memoir. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
memoir
noun
mem·oir
ˈmem-ˌwär 
-ˌwȯ(ə)r
1
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