Word of the Day

Word of the Day for Wednesday, December 29, 2010

engram \EN-gram\, noun:
1. The supposed physical basis of an individual memory in the brain.
2. A presumed encoding in neural tissue that provides a physical basis for the persistence of memory; a memory trace.

What I found was that I did not retain a single specific engram of tying a shoe, or a pair of shoes, that dated from any later than when I was four or five years old, the age at which I had first learned the skill.
-- Nicholson Baker, Mezzanine

You shut it away, but it has left a mark-an engram, like an inscription on your brain.
-- David Bilsborough, A Fire in the North

Engram derives from the Greek roots en, "within," and gram, "something written."