Pelmanism
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A system of training to improve the memory. uncountable
"Leamas who normally read nothing, read newspapers slowly and with concentration. He remembered details, like the names and addresses of people who were the subject of small news items. He did it almost unconsciously as a kind of private pelmanism, and it absorbed him entirely."
- 2 A memory card game in which a pack of cards is spread out face-down and players try to turn up pairs with the same symbol. uncountable
Example
More examples"Leamas who normally read nothing, read newspapers slowly and with concentration. He remembered details, like the names and addresses of people who were the subject of small news items. He did it almost unconsciously as a kind of private pelmanism, and it absorbed him entirely."
Etymology
From Pelman + -ism. Named after the Pelman Institute, founded in London in 1898.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.