memoryless
|mem-o-ry-less|
🇺🇸
/ˈmɛməriˌlɛs/
🇬🇧
/ˈmɛm(ə)rɪləs/
without memory / no retained past
Etymology
'memoryless' is formed in English from the noun 'memory' + the suffix '-less', where 'memory' ultimately comes from Latin 'memoria' (via Old French 'memoire') meaning 'remembrance', and the suffix '-less' comes from Old English 'lēas' meaning 'free from' or 'without'.
The element 'memory' developed from Latin 'memoria' → Old French 'memoire' → Middle English 'memory', and was combined with the Old English-derived suffix '-less' to produce compounds such as 'memoryless' in modern English.
Originally the components meant 'remembrance' (memory) and 'without' (-less), so the compound literally meant 'without memory'; over time it retained that literal sense and also took on a technical meaning in probability theory as 'having the memoryless property'.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Adjective 1
lacking or without memory; not retaining past information or recollections (general, literal use).
The security module was designed to be memoryless so that no previous data could be recovered after shutdown.
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Adjective 2
(Technical, probability/stochastic processes) Having the memoryless property: the conditional probability of future behavior does not depend on the past, only on the present (e.g., exponential and geometric distributions are memoryless).
In queuing theory, the interarrival times are often modeled as memoryless so that waiting times are easier to analyze.
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Last updated: 2025/11/19 14:56