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memoirist

memoirist

2 7.3
A person who writes about their own life
  • noun
  • /ˈmɛm.wɑɪ.rɪst/
translation icon : memorialista
  • Photo (color): Memoirists want to find meaning in their painful experiences and to achieve a measure of solace.

She's a wonderful memoirist and teacher, and when asked about writer's block, I've told the story on the channel several times.

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Examples

  • The memoirist makes a commitment to tell the emotional truth as it felt to him (p. 9).

    Academic text (2012)
  • What should a potential memoirist do if she hasn't experienced anything particularly horrific?

    Academic text (2008)
  • Of course, it helps if the memoirist has a good enemy.

    Blog text (14)
  • Here, then, is one of the most complex, least acknowledged ways in which a memoirist is forced into a necessary lie.

    Academic text (2009)
  • I wanted to be a memoirist, but I didn't want to write about any old events.

  • And yet, some memoirists exaggerate details in their writing.

    Academic text (2008)
  • Ann Hood is a novelist, a memoirist, an essayist, and the author most recently of the novel The Red Thread.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Indeed, memoirists seek to render "the ordinariness of our lives so that it becomes significant" (Calkins, 1991, p. 169).

    Academic text (2012)
  • After years of traveling and observing different cultures, she decided to become a memoirist and share her stories.

  • The famous memoirist captivated readers with her honest reflections on her childhood and family life.

Synonyms

memorialist
vsmemoirist
8.0

A person who writes about their own life and memories

focuses on life experiences as selected not necessarily a full life story
autobiographer
vsmemoirist
6.8

A person who writes about their own life

focuses on selected experiences rather than a complete life account

How Public

author
2.0
memoirist
2 7.3
diarist
7 5.9

Surface Forms

memoirist singular
memoirists plural

Morphology

memoirist = memoir (transparent) = memoir + ist

Productive agentive suffix '-ist' added to 'memoir' yields 'one who writes memoirs', which is directly inferable from the base word.

Etymology

Memoirist comes from memoir, a word tied to English memory that means 'memory' or 'personal story'. The ending -ist means 'person who', so a memoirist is someone who writes their own memories and life stories.