memo

See also: Memo and mémo

English

Etymology

Clipping of memorandum.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛməʊ̯/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛmoʊ̯/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈmiːməʉ/, /ˈmeməʉ/
• Rhymes: -ɛməʊ, -iːməʊ

Noun

memo (plural memos)

1. A short note; a memorandum.
   • 2007, John Yoo, War by Other Means […] , Atlantic Monthly Press, →ISBN, page 42:

     According to yet another leaked memo, Powell responded the next day. Powell's leaked memo conceded that al Qaeda were not POWs, and that the Taliban individually or as a group might also lose their entitlement to that status.

2. (programming) A record of partial results that can be reused later without recomputation.
   • 2020, Daniel Zingaro, Algorithmic Thinking: A Problem-Based Introduction, No Starch Press, →ISBN, page 86:

     The first is that the recursive call finds its subproblem solution in the memo and returns immediately.

Derived terms

• agency credit memo
• agency debit memo
• bench memo
• deal memo
• get the memo
• memo for record
• memo for the record
• memoization
• memoize
• miss the memo
• on memo

Translations

a short note

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 備忘錄 / 备忘录 (zh) (bèiwànglù), 便箋 / 便笺 (zh) (biànjiān), 字條 / 字条 (zh) (zìtiáo)

• Estonian: meelespea (et)
• Finnish: muistio (fi)
• French: note (fr) f, memorandum (fr) m
• German: Memo (de) n, Notiz (de) f, Zettel (de) m
• Japanese: メモ (ja) (memo)
• Korean: 메모 (ko) (memo)
• Macedonian: бе́лешка f (béleška), за́писка f (zápiska)
• Polish: notatka (pl) f, zapisek (pl) m
• Portuguese: nota (pt) f
• Russian: запи́ска (ru) f (zapíska), па́мятка (ru) f (pámjatka), мемора́ндум (ru) m (memorándum) (formal), служе́бная запи́ска f (služébnaja zapíska) (office memo)
• Scottish Gaelic: cuimhneachan m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: по̀дсетнӣк m, по̀дсјетнӣк m

  Roman: pòdsetnīk (sh) m, pòdsjetnīk (sh) m

• Swedish: pm (sv) (abbreviation of promemoria)
• Turkish: kısa not (tr)
• Ukrainian: запи́ска f (zapýska), циду́ла f (cydúla), мемора́ндум m (memorándum)

Verb

memo (third-person singular simple present memos, present participle memoing, simple past and past participle memoed)

1. (informal) To record something; to make a note of something.
2. (informal) To send someone a note about something, for the record.

   I made sure to memo him about the client's complaints.

Anagrams

• EMOM, mome

Chinese

Etymology

From English memo.

Pronunciation

• Cantonese (Jyutping): mi¹ mou²

---

• Cantonese
  • (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)⁺
    • Jyutping: mi¹ mou²
    • Yale: mī móu
    • Cantonese Pinyin: mi¹ mou²
    • Guangdong Romanization: mi¹ mou²
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /miː⁵⁵ mou̯³⁵/

Noun

memo

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) memo (short note) (Classifier: 張／张 c)

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English memo. Equivalent to a shortening of memorandum.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmeː.moː/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: me‧mo

Noun

memo n or m (plural memo's)

1. memo (reminder, short note)

Japanese

Romanization

memo

1. Rōmaji transcription of メモ

Portuguese

Adverb

memo

1. Eye dialect spelling of mesmo.

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmemo/ [ˈme.mo]
• Rhymes: -emo
• Syllabification: me‧mo

Etymology 1

Onomatopoeic of stuttering.

Noun

memo m (plural memos)

1. idiot

Adjective

memo (feminine mema, masculine plural memos, feminine plural memas)

1. silly, stupid

Further reading

• “memo”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10

Etymology 2

Clipping of memorando.

Noun

memo m (plural memos)

1. (chiefly Chile, Guatemala, Honduras) memorandum