Memorandum
noun ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A short note serving as a reminder.
"....be more difficult or uncertain than it had been for so many weeks, I had scarcely for a moment adverted to it as necessary, or placed it amongst my memoranda against this parting interview; and my final anxieties being spent in comforting her with hopes, and in pressing upon her the necessity of getting some medicines for a violent cough and hoarseness with which she was troubled, I wholly forgot it until it was too late to recall her."
- 2 a written proposal or reminder wordnet
- 3 A written business communication.
"The Trump administration will allow federal workers to promote their religious beliefs to colleagues, display religious items at work and pray together or individually, according to a memorandum issued Monday by the Office of Personnel Management."
- 4 A brief diplomatic communication.
- 5 A page in an annual publication honoring the memory of a person who died during the past year.
Example
More examples"I haven't yet read the new memorandum on internal security."
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin memorandum, neuter of memorandus (“to be remembered”).
Related phrases
More for "memorandum"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.