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Glite Dictionary
to reminisce about

to reminisce about

16 5.3
To remember and talk about happy past events
  • phrasal verb
  • /ˌrɛmɪˈnɪs əˈbaʊt/
translation icon : rememorar
  • We would talk and reminisce about the year we had been through.
  • reminisce about childhood
  • reminisce about the past

He reminisces about when they, you know, went sightseeing together.

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Examples

  • It's interesting how at any age you can always reminisce about an earlier time in your life.

    Blog text (27)

  • My father reminisces about his childhood growing up in Ireland.

    Redemption (2020)

  • And it's hard for me to even look back and reminisce about what I was like.

    IMPAULSIVE

  • Just the two of us reminiscing about the good old days.

    The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009)

  • Just, uh, reminiscing about old times.

    Fortress (2021)

  • Are you two reminiscing about old times?

    Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966)

  • I began to reminisce about our special connection for the first 10 years of my life.

    Academic text (2010)

  • Today, we're going to do a little reminiscing about what YouTube used to be like.

  • After reminiscing about their childhood, Judy reveals why she wanted to see her brother.

    Academic text (2007)

  • Last week, Billy and his wife sat at their kitchen table, reminiscing about their boy.

Synonyms

to remember
vsto reminisce about
∞ 1.0

To think about something from the past

puts more stress on fond feeling and on talking about past events
to recall
vsto reminisce about
∞ 2.4

Remember something from the past

puts emphasis on pleasure and telling stories rather than plain fact retrieval
to look back
vsto reminisce about
323 2.6

Think about the past, especially a time you remember

is about recalling past events with fond feeling and often talking about them
to think back
vsto reminisce about
92 1.9

Remember things that happened in the past

emphasizes recalling with fond feeling and often telling others about it
to reminisce
vsto reminisce about
50 5.8

To think or talk about happy times from the past

is used with a following preposition to name the topic remembered
to recollect
vsto reminisce about
20 3.7

To remember something from the past

adds a warm, pleasant attitude and often includes sharing memories aloud
to cast one's mind back
vsto reminisce about
2 6.3

Think about something that happened in the past to remember it

focuses on recalling with pleasure rather than simply searching memory

How Pleasant

to reminisce about
16 5.3
to talk about
∞ 1.3
to mention
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

reminisce about infinitive
reminisced about past
reminisced about past participle
reminiscing about present participle
reminisces about third person singular

Morphology

reminisce + about

The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'reminisce' (to reflect on pleasant memories) with 'about' (marking the topic), so a learner who knows both words would understand it as recalling or talking about past experiences. This verb + topic-preposition pattern is regular in English (and similar in many languages), making the expression predictable and immediately comprehensible.

Etymology

Reminisce about comes from the simple image of people sitting together and sharing old stories from earlier times. The word reminisce means 'remembering' and about points to 'the past', so reminisce about means 'to recall or talk about' past experiences with pleasure.