Mem"o*ry (?), n.; pl. Memories (#). [OE. memorie, OF. memoire, memorie,
F. mémoire, L. memoria, fr. memor mindful; cf. mora delay. Cf. Demur,
Martyr, Memoir, Remember.]
1. The faculty of the mind by which it retains the knowledge of
previous thoughts, impressions, or events.
Memory is the purveyor of reason.
Rambler.
2. The reach and positiveness with which a person can remember; the
strength and trustworthiness of one's power to reach and represent or
to recall the past; as, his memory was never wrong.
3. The actual and distinct retention and recognition of past ideas in
the mind; remembrance; as, in memory of youth; memories of foreign
lands.
4. The time within which past events can be or are remembered; as,
within the memory of man.
And what, before thy memory, was done From the begining.
Milton.
5. Something, or an aggregate of things, remembered; hence, character,
conduct, etc., as preserved in remembrance, history, or tradition;
posthumous fame; as, the war became only a memory.
The memory of the just is blessed.
Prov. x. 7.
That ever-living man of memory, Henry the Fifth.
Shak.
The Nonconformists . . . have, as a body, always venerated her
[Elizabeth's] memory.
Macaulay.