different between memento vs artifact

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin mement? (“remember”), imperative form of memin? (“I remember”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m??m?nto?/
• Rhymes: -?nt??

Noun

memento (plural mementos or mementoes)

1. A keepsake; an object kept as a reminder of a place or event.

   I kept the shell as a memento of my visit to the seashore.

Usage notes

• The spelling momento is so common that some references now no longer consider it a misspelling.

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ????
• ? Serbo-Croatian: ???????
• ? Marathi: ?????? (meme?o)

Synonyms

• keepsake
• souvenir
• (plural): memorabilia

Translations

References

• “memento” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present. (usage note)

Italian

Etymology

From Latin mement?.

Noun

memento m (plural mementi)

1. memento, keepsake
2. warning

Further reading

• memento in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /me?men.to?/, [m??m?n?t?o?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /me?men.to/, [m??m?n?t??]

Verb

mement?

1. second-person singular future active imperative of memin?

References

• memento in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)

Romanian

Etymology

From French mémento

Noun

memento n (uncountable)

1. memento

Declension

Serbo-Croatian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /memento/
• Hyphenation: me?men?to

Noun

memento m (Cyrillic spelling ???????)

1. memento

Spanish

Etymology

From Latin mement?.

Noun

memento m (plural mementos)

1. memento

Further reading

• “memento” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.

English

Etymology

Alteration of artefact, from Italian artefatto, from Latin arte (“by skill”) (ablative of ars (“art”)) + factum (“thing made”) (from facio (“to make, do”)).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /???t?fækt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /???t?fækt/, [-??-], [-??-]
• Hyphenation: ar?ti?fact

Noun

artifact (plural artifacts)

1. An object made or shaped by human hand or labor.
2. An object made or shaped by some agent or intelligence, not necessarily of direct human origin.
3. Something viewed as a product of human agency or conception rather than an inherent element.
   • 2004, Philip Weiss, American Taboo: A Murder In The Peace Corps

     The very act of looking at a naked model was an artifact of male supremacy.
4. A finding or structure in an experiment or investigation that is not a true feature of the object under observation, but is a result of external action, the test arrangement, or an experimental error.

5. (archaeology) An object, such as a tool, ornament, or weapon of archaeological or historical interest, especially such an object found at an archaeological excavation.
6. (biology) An appearance or structure in protoplasm due to death, the method of preparation of specimens, or the use of reagents, and not present during life.
7. (computing) A perceptible distortion that appears in an audio or video file or a digital image as a result of applying a lossy compression algorithm.

Usage notes

The spelling artifact is preferred by most American dictionaries, while artefact is the preferred spelling in Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary with artifact listed as a variant.

Alternative forms

• artefact (Australian and British spelling)

Translations

Further reading

• artifact in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• “artifact”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.