memento (memento)

[F. mémento, a reminder, He is but a man, and seasonable mementos may be useful Bacon. Brother of death daily haunts us with dying mementos . Sir T. Browne , Urn-burial, v. At length she found herself decay; Death sent mementos every day. Cotton, Fables, v. These [paralytics] speak a loud memento . Cowper , Task, i. 482. =Syn. Souvenir , etc. (see memorial ), remembrancer. memento mor i (me-men'to moʻri). [L., remember to die, i. e. that thou must die; usual ly translated, 'remember death': memento, 2d pers. sing. impv. of memini e, remember (see memento); mor i, die (see mort, mort2).] A decorative object, usually an ornament for the person, containing emblems of death or of the pa ing away of life: common in the sixteenth century. I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a Death's-head or a memento mor i. Shak . , 1 Hen. IV., iii. 3. 35.