memorycide

M3E1M3O1R1Y4C3I1D2E1

noun

The deliberate destruction of all traces and physical reminders of a people.

Scrabble 20

Meanings

nounmemorycide (countable and uncountable, plural memorycides)

plural memorycides

  1. countableuncountableThe deliberate destruction of all traces and physical reminders of a people.

    And we can but fear the consequence of this memorycide on the future of Lebanon.

    2002, Lynn Meskell, Archaeology Under Fire, →ISBN
    3 more examples

    They foreshadowed a total war against a population threatened with "memorycide," to use Mirko Grmek's terminology, as well as "Urbicide," a fundamental dimension of this memorycide, as Bogdan Bogdanovic put it.

    2003, Robert Gellately, Ben Kiernan, The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective, →ISBN

    I remembered the first peace activists who came with their ideas of nonviolent actions against the war already in 1991; I could evoke many images of war atrocities, tortures and moments of memorycide but also the miraculous situations of human support and actions across borders; I couldn't foget my own restlessness facing women victims of rape, their silence, their shame and their dignity.

    2007, Asking, we walk: the South as new political imaginary

    Beyond that, the assumed project of memorycide offers a negative foil for the duty to remember and for the dedication of museums, memorials, and monuments.

    2012, Dan Stone, The Holocaust and Historical Methodology, →ISBN, page 62

Origin

Translations

French mémoricide
  • mémoricideTranslations
Portuguese memoricídio
  • memoricídioTranslations
Cite this entry
APA

memorycide. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/memorycide

MLA

“memorycide.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/memorycide. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “memorycide,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/memorycide.

Source: memorycide on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.