How to Use memento mori in a Sentence

memento mori

noun
  • That guy was memento mori-ing all over the place.
    — Maggie Fremont, Vulture, 27 Mar. 2026
  • The gash is like a memento mori, hidden, so his kids won’t see.
    — Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker, 8 Mar. 2021
  • There’s no shortage of leering skulls; most are memento mori, but one is a parlor trick.
    — Cate McQuaid, BostonGlobe.com, 14 Mar. 2018
  • Now, like memento mori, the lines on their brows add to the sense of inevitability that haunts the show.
    — Aaron Bady, The New Yorker, 18 Apr. 2022
  • And her apartment is a daily memento mori, or at least a memory palace.
    — Annie Leibovitz, Vogue, 18 Sep. 2017
  • In Latin, memento mori is a phrase about the inevitability of death.
    — ELLE, 27 Jan. 2023
  • In the vein of the Dutch still life, the composition has its memento mori, here an hourglass.
    — Washington Post, 2 Nov. 2020
  • In this way and in others, the memento mori are clearly somewhat personal.
    — Carol Kino, WSJ, 6 Oct. 2017
  • Online, many Chinese youth didn’t treat it as offensive, but rather as a kind of memento mori.
    — Catherine Thorbecke, Twin Cities, 31 Jan. 2026
  • Some of its most fervent adherents collect the bones of small animals, as a form of memento mori.
    — Washington Post, 13 Sep. 2021
  • Vera’s very busy, very strange day, a day of confrontations, wily falsehoods and refusals, is a kind of memento mori.
    — Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 7 Sep. 2017
  • But the pandemic—that inescapable memento mori—serves as a frame and a catalyst rather than a subject.
    — Claire Messud, Harper’s Magazine , 4 Jan. 2022
  • The title alone offers a view of life as starkly unsentimental as any memento mori.
    — The New York Review of Books, 21 Feb. 2019
  • Two of the figures are packed inside syringes to memorialize drug victims, while a toy-size cemetery with an open grave serves as a memento mori.
    — Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 14 Oct. 2022
  • Some saints have been known especially for their devotion to the Latin phrase memento mori, remember your death.
    — Alexandra Desanctis, National Review, 2 Mar. 2022
  • In the aftermath, the pungent fruit lies abandoned in a corner, a distinctly Asian memento mori.
    — Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 15 Apr. 2024
  • Like the show as a whole, the work is an unsettling memento mori that invokes the conventions of art making only to radically upend them.
    — New York Times, 2 June 2021
  • The arrangements of personal effects at estate sales are memento mori more sobering than any skeleton ever carved into marble.
    — Caity Weaver, The Atlantic, 12 June 2026
  • Fighting Demons, his second posthumous album is a tortured but overall grateful memento mori from a talented artist who left us all too soon.
    — Will Dukes, Rolling Stone, 16 Dec. 2021
  • For all their sparkle, eclipses are ultimately a memento mori, inspiring us to absorb as much wonder as possible before our time on Earth winks out.
    — Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 21 Mar. 2024
  • This memento mori is an intrusion of tragedy into an otherwise deathless space, but the ghost is also a hopeful sort of figure who somehow manages to elude oblivion.
    — Annika Neklason, The Atlantic, 26 June 2018
  • In medieval Europe, the skeleton was commonly portrayed as a memento mori—a reminder of the inevitability of death.
    — Chip Colwell, The Atlantic, 18 Oct. 2017
  • Her style evolved to incorporate influences from Victorian mourning and memento mori.
    — Lauren Brown, Marie Claire, 16 Oct. 2019
  • In 28 Years Later, Fienne’s Kelson explained to young Spike the meaning of the phrase memento mori.
    — Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 14 Jan. 2026
  • Shot in available light in a way that brings out the soft drifts of feathers and tender tufts of fur, the creatures seem halfway between death and life, reminiscent of medieval memento mori while also appearing strangely new.
    — Carol Kino, WSJ, 6 Oct. 2017
  • Relentless, hi-def gore is The Monkey’s greatest achievement, but all the blood-spatter in the world couldn’t redeem its clumsy plotting, frat-boy humor, and feigned memento mori.
    — Madison Bloom, Pitchfork, 7 Feb. 2025
  • Sister Aletheia’s project has reached Catholics all over the country, via social media, a memento mori prayer journal — even merchandise emblazoned with a signature skull.
    — New York Times, 14 May 2021
  • The boy king’s once triumphant riches now appeared tragic, his death mask a memento mori not only for individuals but for civilizations, which, no matter how powerful, seemed destined to fall.
    — Casey Cep, The New Yorker, 7 Feb. 2022
  • The photographs are a reminder of the decency of ordinary Americans, and a memento mori, a warning of the risks to which Newsom is exposing himself.
    — Helen Lewis, The Atlantic, 6 Jan. 2026
  • Other takes on memento mori include Gregory Masurovsky’s lithograph that shows a cigarette burning itself out in an ashtray, with nothing in the background but endless gray.
    — Susan Dunne, courant.com, 29 July 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'memento mori.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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