Commemorate vs Memorize - What's the difference?

As verbs the difference between commemorate and memorize

is that commemorate is to honour the memory of someone or something with a ceremony while memorize is to learn by heart, commit to memory.

To honour the memory of someone or something with a ceremony.

* On November 11th we commemorate the fallen with a march.

To serve as a memorial to someone or something.

* The cenotaph commemorates the fallen.

* memorialize

* commemorative * commemoration English transitive verbs ----

* (UK) memorise

to learn by heart, commit to memory

* 2009 , A Practical Study of Argument (ISBN 0495603406), page 123:

Many years ago there was a rumor that a basketball star (Jerry Lucas of the New York Knicks) had memorized the entire Manhattan phone book.

* 2009 , Hailey Abbott, The Perfect Boy (ISBN 006197157X), page 258:

She was so used to the way he moved—they'd been practicing together for years, and she'd memorized the way his body worked.

* memorization