Learn English – What do you call a person with a good memory? Does ‘intelligent’ work

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Can a person with great memory power be called intelligent? Or is there any other word or phrase to describe such a person?

Best Answer

Although I would have to agree with both snailboat and hjpotter92's choice of eidetic and mnemonist as words meaning "someone who is very good at remembering", it really isn't particularly idiomatic. Most native speakers would say:

John has a photographic memory.

Rather than

John is eidetic.

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And

Jill has a good memory

Rather than

Jill is a mnemonist.

In general, as a native speaker I would prefer terms that are widely understood and in common usage rather than ones which are concise, so unless you have particularly good reason to expect the person you're talking to to know the term eidetic, I'd probably just stick with something similar to the following:

Jane has amazing memory prowess.

John's memory is fantastic.

Bill has a surprisingly good memory.

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