Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Commemorate \Com*mem"o*rate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p.
   {Commemorated}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Commemorating}.] [L.
   commemoratus, p. p. of commemorare to remember; com- +
   memorare to mention, fr. memor mindful. See {Memory}.]
   To call to remembrance by a special act or observance; to
   celebrate with honor and solemnity; to honor, as a person or
   event, by some act of respect or affection, intended to
   preserve the remembrance of the person or event; as, to
   commemorate the sufferings and dying love of our Savior by
   the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; to commemorate the
   Declaration of Independence by the observance of the Fourth
   of July.

         We are called upon to commemorate a revolution.
                                                  --Atterbury.

   Syn: See {Celebrate}.

Source : WordNet®

commemorate
     v 1: mark by some ceremony or observation; "We marked the
          anniversary of his death" [syn: {mark}]
     2: call to remembrance; keep alive the memory of someone or
        something, as in a ceremony; "We remembered the 50th
        anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz"; "Remember the
        dead of the First World War" [syn: {remember}]
     3: be or provide a memorial to a person or an event; "This
        sculpture commemorates the victims of the concentration
        camps"; "We memorialized the Dead" [syn: {memorialize}, {memorialise},
         {immortalize}, {immortalise}, {record}]