MEMOIR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does memoir mean? 

• MEMOIR (noun)
  The noun MEMOIR has 2 senses:

1. an account of the author's personal experiences

2. an essay on a scientific or scholarly topic

  Familiarity information: MEMOIR used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MEMOIR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An account of the author's personal experiences

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("memoir" is a kind of...):

autobiography (a biography of yourself)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An essay on a scientific or scholarly topic

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("memoir" is a kind of...):

essay (an analytic or interpretive literary composition)

 Context examples 

Because I made a blunder, my dear Watson—which is, I am afraid, a more common occurrence than any one would think who only knew me through your memoirs.

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

At last, however, by touching a secret spring, an inner compartment will open—a roll of paper appears—you seize it—it contains many sheets of manuscript—you hasten with the precious treasure into your own chamber, but scarcely have you been able to decipher 'Oh! Thou—whomsoever thou mayst be, into whose hands these memoirs of the wretched Matilda may fall'—when your lamp suddenly expires in the socket, and leaves you in total darkness.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

As I have reason to believe, however, that the full facts have never been revealed to the general public, and as my friend Sherlock Holmes had a considerable share in clearing the matter up, I feel that no memoir of him would be complete without some little sketch of this remarkable episode.

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

I suppose, now, said Miss Ingram, curling her lip sarcastically, we shall have an abstract of the memoirs of all the governesses extant: in order to avert such a visitation, I again move the introduction of a new topic.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Yet, so far have you been from answering my expectation in any of your letters; that on the contrary you are loading our carrier every week with libels, and keys, and reflections, and memoirs, and second parts; wherein I see myself accused of reflecting upon great state folk; of degrading human nature (for so they have still the confidence to style it), and of abusing the female sex.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

His looks shewing him not pained, but pleased with this allusion to his situation, she was emboldened to go on; and feeling in herself the right of seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Your memoirs will draw to an end, Watson, upon the day that I crown my career by the capture or extinction of the most dangerous and capable criminal in Europe.

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

In glancing over the somewhat incoherent series of memoirs with which I have endeavoured to illustrate a few of the mental peculiarities of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have been struck by the difficulty which I have experienced in picking out examples which shall in every way answer my purpose.

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

He had a horror of destroying documents, especially those which were connected with his past cases, and yet it was only once in every year or two that he would muster energy to docket and arrange them; for, as I have mentioned somewhere in these incoherent memoirs, the outbursts of passionate energy when he performed the remarkable feats with which his name is associated were followed by reactions of lethargy during which he would lie about with his violin and his books, hardly moving save from the sofa to the table.

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