Emily Dickinson Lexicon

MEM'O-RY, n. [L. memoria; Fr. memoire; Sw. minne; Ir. meamhair, or meabhair, meanma. This word is from memini, which is probably corrupted from the Greek μναομαι, to remember, from μενος, mind, or the same root. See Mind.]

1. The faculty of the mind by which it retains the knowledge of past events, or ideas which are past. A distinction is made between memory and recollection. Memory retains past ideas without any, or with little effort; recollection implies an effort to recall ideas that are past. Beattie. Reid. Stewart. Memory is the purveyor of reason. Rambler.
2. A retaining of past ideas in the mind; remembrance. Events that excite little attention are apt to escape from memory.
3. Exemption from oblivion. That ever-living man of memory, / Henry the Fifth. Shak.
4. The time within which past events can be remembered or recollected, or the time within which a person may have knowledge of what is past. The revolution in England was before my memory; the revolution in America was within the author's memory.
5. Memorial; monumental record; that which calls to remembrance. A monument in London was erected in memory of the conflagration in 1666.
6. Reflection; attention. Shak.