Meaning of memento mori in English

memento mori

noun [ C usually singular ]

/-toʊˈmɔːr.i/ uk

/məˌmen.təʊˈmɔː.ri/

plural memento mori

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something that reminds people that everyone must die:

The painting features a human skull, the classic memento mori.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Death and dying

bereave
bite
bleed out
buy the farm idiom
cadaveric
death toll
depart this life idiom
die off
fatality
ghost
perch
predecease
push
remains
snuff
starvation
suffocation
terminally
those whom the gods love die young idiom
watery

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Remembering people who have died

(Definition of memento mori from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of memento mori

memento mori

Come to think of it, death provides an apt metaphor for the pictures: memento mori of perishing vanity.

From The New Yorker

The haunting image is a prime example of a memento mori, an artwork hinting at the mortality that taunts us all.

From Huffington Post

Some of these might be considered memento mori, often for the film medium.

From The New York Review of Books

If all encapsulated objects are memento mori, then what about the technologies used to experience them?

From The Atlantic

This type of memento mori (reminder of death) had the goal of making society conscious of the importance of living a righteous life.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

A great man must keep his heir at his feast like a living memento mori.

From Project Gutenberg

His mighty body was left as a memento mori to the valiant bull who succeeded him in the affections of his widows and offspring.

From Project Gutenberg

The memento mori must be applied to all else.

From Project Gutenberg

His memento mori was in his bed-chamber, and sat by him at his frugal meal.

From Project Gutenberg

On a trellis, a crowding sisterhood of pale roses drooped their heads downward in memento mori.

From Project Gutenberg

The pale shaft is a constant memento mori.

From Project Gutenberg

Good health on the road generally, though we see a grave occasionally, which reminds us of the admonition, "memento mori," and beneath this inhospitable soil are hearts once virtuous ambition.

From Project Gutenberg

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

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