memory

英文词源

memory

memory: [14] The Indo-European base *men-, *mon- ‘think’ has contributed an enormously wide range of words to the English lexicon, from comment to mind. One particular semantic family denotes ‘memory’, and goes back to memor ‘mindful’, a Latin descendant of *men-. From it was derived the noun memoria ‘memory’, which has given English memory, memorize [16], memorial [14], and, via modern French, memoir [16]; and the verb memorāre ‘remember’, from which English gets commemorate [16], memorable [15], and memorandum [16] (not forgetting its abbreviation memo [19]).

Also from memor comes remember; and three other Latin descendants of *men-, meminisse ‘remember’, reminiscī ‘remember’, and mentiō ‘remembrance’, gave English memento [15], reminiscence [16], and mention respectively. The distantly related remind carries the same idea.
=> commemorate, comment, mention, mind, remind, reminisce

memory (n.)

mid-13c., "recollection (of someone or something); awareness, consciousness," also "fame, renown, reputation," from Anglo-French memorie (Old French memoire, 11c., "mind, memory, remembrance; memorial, record") and directly from Latin memoria "memory, remembrance, faculty of remembering," noun of quality from memor "mindful, remembering," from PIE root *(s)mer- (1) "to remember" (Sanskrit smarati "remembers," Avestan mimara "mindful;" Greek merimna "care, thought," mermeros "causing anxiety, mischievous, baneful;" Serbo-Croatian mariti "to care for;" Welsh marth "sadness, anxiety;" Old Norse Mimir, name of the giant who guards the Well of Wisdom; Old English gemimor "known," murnan "mourn, remember sorrowfully;" Dutch mijmeren "to ponder"). Meaning "faculty of remembering" is late 14c. in English.

I am grown old and my memory is not as active as it used to be. When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do it. [Mark Twain, "Autobiography"]

Computer sense, "device which stores information," is from 1946. Related: Memories.