Origin: Latin suffix -ment
Monument has 5 different meanings across 1 category:
an important site that is marked and preserved as public property
"The ancient battlefield was designated as a national monument to ensure its preservation for future generations."
a burial vault (usually for some famous person)
"The family placed flowers at the monument, which served as their ancestor's elaborate underground burial vault."
A structure built for commemorative or symbolic reasons, or as a memorial; a commemoration.
"The city erected a towering monument to honor the fallen soldiers who sacrificed their lives in the war."
In plain English: A monument is a big structure built to remember someone important or mark a special event.
"The old war monument stands tall in the center of the town square."
Usage: Use this word to refer specifically to physical structures like statues or obelisks that honor people or events, rather than abstract concepts of memory. It is often confused with "monumental," which describes something impressively large in scale rather than serving as a memorial.
To mark or memorialize with a monument.
"The city decided to erect a statue to honor and memorialize the fallen soldiers at the town square."
In plain English: To monument something is to build a lasting structure that honors it, though this usage is very rare and usually people just use the word as a noun instead.
"The company plans to monument their victory with a grand celebration next week."
The word "monument" entered English via the Old French monument, which came from the Latin monumentum meaning a memorial or tomb. This original sense of something that reminds people of someone else derives directly from the Latin verb monēre, to remind.