Commandment

How to spell commandment

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce commandment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does commandment mean?

1. nounA divine or authoritative order, especially one of the ten rules given in the Bible.

Commandment in a sentence

• The sermon focused on the sixth commandment and its meaning today.

• Honouring your parents is treated as a serious commandment in many faiths.

Where does commandment come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb mandare, which literally meant 'to give into one's hand' and so 'to order' or 'to entrust', built from manus 'hand' and dare 'to give'. From mandare came Old French comander, meaning 'to command', and from that the noun comandement for an authoritative order. English took the word in during the 1200s, largely through the language of the church, where it became the standard term for the divine orders handed down to Moses, the Ten Commandments. The doubled m in the middle (comm-) reflects the Latin intensive com- prefix fused onto the root, while the -ment ending is the same noun-forming suffix seen in 'judgement' and 'agreement'. The 'hand' buried inside mandare also survives in close relatives such as 'mandate' and 'demand', a useful clue to the spelling.

How the word is built

• com- (intensive, fully)
• mand (from mandare: to order, entrust)
• -ment (noun suffix denoting a result or action)