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
That rejection story appears in Bridges’s memoir for older students, Through My Eyes, not in the picture books.
—Literary Hub, 21 May 2026
Born in 1940 in Bayonne, New Jersey, Frank wrote in his 2015 memoir that he was drawn to public life after Emmett Till, a Black 14-year-old from Chicago, was lynched by white men in Mississippi.
—Steven Sloan, Fortune, 20 May 2026
The couple, who got engaged in 2017, previously shared details about their engagement in their Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan and in Harry's 2023 memoir, Spare.
—Greta Bjornson, PEOPLE, 19 May 2026
Ferrer planted the seeds for her memoir by beginning Cuba with an account of her family’s immigration to the United States.
—Geraldo L. Cadava, The Atlantic, 19 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for memoir
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Literary Hub, 21 May 2026
Born in 1940 in Bayonne, New Jersey, Frank wrote in his 2015 memoir that he was drawn to public life after Emmett Till, a Black 14-year-old from Chicago, was lynched by white men in Mississippi.
—Steven Sloan, Fortune, 20 May 2026
The couple, who got engaged in 2017, previously shared details about their engagement in their Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan and in Harry's 2023 memoir, Spare.
—Greta Bjornson, PEOPLE, 19 May 2026
Ferrer planted the seeds for her memoir by beginning Cuba with an account of her family’s immigration to the United States.
—Geraldo L. Cadava, The Atlantic, 19 May 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 21 May. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
memoir
noun
mem·oir
ˈmem-ˌwär 
-ˌwȯ(ə)r
1
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