Souvenir Meaning
/ˌsuː.vəˈnɪə/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn item of sentimental value, that is given or kept to remember an event or location.
verbTo take (something) as a souvenir, especially illicitly, for example during wartime.
Sentence Examples
This will be a good souvenir of my trip around the United States.
Is there a souvenir shop in the hotel?
CEFR Practice Quiz
I bought a small ____ to remember my trip to Paris.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She bought a small ceramic magnet as a ____ of her wonderful summer trip to the Greek islands.
Word Origin & History
Unadapted borrowing from French souvenir (literally “memory”). Compare memento.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Back then, nobody knew in the schoolyard / Now then, you have grown up to be this hard / Go then, walk through this world with your heart scarred / You're the souvenir of sadness"
— 2005, “Souvenir”, performed by Korn:
"The tourists stuck to the safe confines of the gift shop, where they bought souvenir combs, shot glasses, oversize pencils, and blocks of cedar painted with rhyming poems and shellacked to a high gloss."
— 2005, Steven Church, Guinness Book of Me, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 138:
""Doubletime up to the ville and souvenir me one cute orphan, man, but be sure you get a dirty one, a really skuzzy one.""
— 1979, Gustav Hasford, The Short-Timers, New York: Bantam Books, published 1980, →ISBN, page 57:
"The word is they're waiting for some blokes who had gone off souveniring before the order was announced."
— 2017, Fiona Farrell, Decline and Fall on Savage Street, →ISBN, page 84:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
I bought a small ____ to remember my trip to Paris.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She bought a small ceramic magnet as a ____ of her wonderful summer trip to the Greek islands.