Word of the Day
: April 13, 2025reminisce
playWhat It Means
To reminisce is to talk, think, or write about things that happened in the past.
// After the official reunion dinner, the old friends gathered at a pub to reminisce about their high school days, now long past.
reminisce in Context
“Our parents would reminisce about their past happiness and point to the oversized photographic portrait taken of them at the county fair sometime in the mid-1970s, before we were born.” — Nora Lange, Us Fools, 2024
Did You Know?
Do you remember, say, the 21st night of September? Fantastic. Earth, Wind, and Fire does, too, on their classic hit from 1978, “September.” More than remember, the band reminisces—that is, they share details and express feelings about what they remember: dancing, a bell ringing, souls singing, et al. Reminisce distinguishes itself from words like remember and recollect by implying a casual recalling of experiences long past, often with a sense of nostalgia. Reminisce and its relatives reminiscence and reminiscent all trace back to the Latin verb reminisci, meaning “remember.” Reminisci in turn shares roots with mens, the Latin word for “mind.”
Test Your Vocabulary with M-W Quizzes
Test Your Vocabulary
Rearrange the letters to form a word meaning “something kept or given to be kept as a memento”: SKEEEKPA
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