memory (memories plural )
1 n-var Your memory is your ability to remember things.
oft poss N
All the details of the meeting are fresh in my memory..., He'd a good memory for faces, and he was sure he hadn't seen her before..., But locals with long memories thought this was fair revenge for the injustice of 1961...
2 n-count A memory is something that you remember from the past.
usu with supp, oft N of n
She cannot bear to watch the film because of the bad memories it brings back..., Her earliest memory is of singing at the age of four to wounded soldiers..., He had happy memories of his father.
3 n-count A computer's memory is the part of the computer where information is stored, especially for a short time before it is transferred to disks or magnetic tapes. (COMPUTING)
The data are stored in the computer's memory.
4 n-sing If you talk about the memory of someone who has died, especially someone who was loved or respected, you are referring to the thoughts, actions, and ceremonies by which they are remembered.
usu with poss, also in N of n
She remained devoted to his memory..., The congress opened with a minute's silence in memory of those who died in the struggle.
5 If you do something from memory, for example speak the words of a poem or play a piece of music, you do it without looking at it, because you know it very well.
from memory phrase PHR after v
Many members of the church sang from memory...
6 If you say that something is, for example, the best, worst, or first thing of its kind in living memory, you are emphasizing that it is the only thing of that kind that people can remember.
in living memory phrase n/adj PHR, usu with adj-superl/brd-neg (emphasis)
The floods are the worst in living memory...
7 If you lose your memory, you forget things that you used to know.
lose your memory phrase V inflects
His illness caused him to lose his memory.
8 →
to commit something to memory →
commit
memory chip (memory chips plural )In a computer, the memory chip is the microchip in which information is stored. n-count
virtual memory
Virtual memory is a computing technique in which you increase the size of a computer's memory by arranging or storing the data in it in a different way. (COMPUTING) n-uncount
