Etymologically
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souvenir

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 22:56. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˌsuː.vəˈnɪə/[1]
  • US: /ˈsu.vəˌnɪɹ/, /ˌsu.vəˈnɪɹ/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French souvenir (“memory; keepsake”),[2][3][4][5] a noun use of the verb se souvenir (“to remember”),[3][6][7] from Old French suvenir (“to come to mind, remember”),[2][4] from Latin subveniō (“to come to mind, come up”),[2][8][3] from sub- (“up from below”) and veniō (“to come”),[4][9] from Proto-Indo-European *gwa- (“to go, come”).[4][8] The Old French noun meant "a memory" from the end of the 13th century and "a memento" from 1676; the verb is recorded from about 1100.[2] souvenir, souvenir and souvenir are also from French.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A remembrance or memory: 1775, in the letters of Horace Walpole.[3][4][2]

Semantic evolution

The sense "a token of remembrance, a keepsake" is first recorded in a jeweller's stock catalogue of 1776,[2] or in 1782 according to Barnhart and Etymonline,[3][4] and it soon became the main meaning, especially of a small, cheap article bought as a reminder of a place.[2][10] From 1798 a souvenir was also an illustrated annual sold as a gift, now historical.[2] The older sense, a memory, is now literary or rare.[2][10] In the First World War soldiers called a shell or bullet a souvenir and used the verb for wounding with one,[2] and Australian soldiers used the verb for taking things as trophies, a euphemism for stealing;[11] the OED's first record of the verb in that sense is Australian, from 1897.[2] Collins still labels it Australian and New Zealand slang.[7]

Timeline

  • 1775 – a remembrance, a memory.[2][3]
  • 1776 – a keepsake, a memento.[2]
  • 1782 – a token of remembrance.[3][4]
  • 1798 – an illustrated gift annual.[2]
  • 1842 – verb, to commemorate with a souvenir.[2]
  • 1897 – verb, to take as a souvenir; to pilfer.[2]
  • 1915 – military slang, a shell or bullet; to wound with one.[2]
  • 1919 – a trophy, or something stolen, in Australian soldiers' slang.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Something kept or bought as a reminder of a place, person or event; a memento or keepsake: He brought back a souvenir mug from Lisbon.[12][7][2]
  2. (literary) A memory; an act of remembering.[12][2][10]

Verb

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, informal) To take something as a souvenir; euphemistically, to steal it.[7][2][12][11]
  2. To commemorate with a souvenir; usually in the passive.[2]

Word family

  • souvenir sheet

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  10. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  12. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster