COMMEMORATE

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does commemorate mean? 

• COMMEMORATE (verb)
  The verb COMMEMORATE has 3 senses:

1. celebrate by some ceremony or observation

2. call to remembrance; keep alive the memory of someone or something, as in a ceremony

3. be or provide a memorial to a person or an event

  Familiarity information: COMMEMORATE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COMMEMORATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they commemorate    ... he / she / it commemorates   
Past simple: commemorated   
Past participle: commemorated   
-ing form: commemorating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Celebrate by some ceremony or observation

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

commemorate; mark

Context example:

The citizens mark the anniversary of the revolution with a march and a parade

Hypernyms (to "commemorate" is one way to...):

celebrate; keep; observe (behave as expected during of holidays or rites)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

commemoration (a ceremony to honor the memory of someone or something)

commemorative (intended as a commemoration)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Call to remembrance; keep alive the memory of someone or something, as in a ceremony

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

commemorate; remember

Context example:

Remember the dead of the First World War

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

commemoration (a ceremony to honor the memory of someone or something)

commemorative (intended as a commemoration)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Be or provide a memorial to a person or an event

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

commemorate; immortalise; immortalize; memorialise; memorialize

Context example:

We memorialized the Dead

Hypernyms (to "commemorate" is one way to...):

remind (put in the mind of someone)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "commemorate"):

monumentalise; monumentalize (record or memorialize lastingly with a monument)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Derivation:

commemoration (a recognition of meritorious service)

commemorative (intended as a commemoration)

 Context examples 

This bad impression was further heightened by Martin's reading aloud the half-dozen stanzas of verse with which he had commemorated Marian's previous visit.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Even when you knew me first, at the time of the affair which you have commemorated in ‘A Study in Scarlet,’ I had already established a considerable, though not a very lucrative, connection.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I begged Mr. Micawber to fill us bumpers, and proposed the toast in due form: shaking hands with him across the table, and kissing Mrs. Micawber, to commemorate that eventful occasion.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)