memorialize

English

Alternative forms

• memorialise (non-Oxford British English)

Etymology

From memorial +‎ -ize.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

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Verb

memorialize (third-person singular simple present memorializes, present participle memorializing, simple past and past participle memorialized) (American spelling, Oxford British English)

1. (transitive) To provide a memorial for someone; to commemorate.
   • 2008, Roland Racevskis, Tragic Passages: Jean Racine's Art of the Threshold‎^[1], page 85:

     In this passage, Andromaque sees Astyanax only through the memorializing lens of his attribution to Hector, his status as "gage."

   • 2021 November 28, Jon Henley, “Dancer, singer … spy: France’s Panthéon to honour Josephine Baker”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     President Emmanuel Macron decided this summer that 46 years after her death, Baker would become only the sixth woman to be memorialised in the Panthéon in a ceremony on 30 November – the anniversary of the marriage to Jean Lion that allowed her to acquire French nationality.

2. (transitive, social media) To convert (someone’s profile) into a memorial site/page (e.g. on Facebook).
   • 2015 May 20, J. D. Biersdorfer, “Unlike You, Your Facebook Account Can Be Immortal”, in The New York Times‎^[3], →ISSN:

     Facebook says people with memorialized accounts do not appear in advertisements or birthday reminders on the site and are also excluded from the People You May Know list of friend suggestions.

3. (transitive, law) To create a written record of a meeting or conversation.
   • 2019 October 1, Charlie Savage, Matthew Rosenberg and Adam Goldman, “The Extra-Secret White House Computer System, Explained”, in The New York Times‎^[4]:

     Most of the time, the National Security Council — the foreign policy arm of the White House — memorializes presidential phone or video calls with foreign heads of state on the so-called TNet system, the officials said.

4. (transitive, dated) To petition with a memorial, or statement of facts.
   • 1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC:

     Why, you'll—you'll ask till they tell you. Then you'll memorialize that Department (according to regular forms which you'll find out) for leave to memorialize this Department.

Derived terms

• memorialization
• memorializer

Translations

to commemorate

• German: eine Denkschrift einreichen (de), eine Gedenkfeier abhalten (de) (für jemand)
• Hungarian: emléket állít
• Spanish: conmemorar (es)
• Ukrainian: меморіалізува́ти (uk) impf or pf (memorializuváty)

to convert (a profile) into a memorial site/page

• Hungarian: emlékoldallá alakít
• Spanish: memorializar