Commando

How to spell commando

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce commando

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does commando mean?

1. nounA soldier specially trained for swift, surprise raids and assaults, often behind enemy lines.

Commando in a sentence

• The retired commando now trains recruits in survival skills.

• Every commando in the unit carried a rope and a knife for the night raid.

Where does commando come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word reached English from Afrikaans, the South African variety of Dutch, where 'kommando' described a mobile unit of mounted militia raised for a raid. The Afrikaans term itself came from the Portuguese 'comando', meaning a command or a body of troops under one command, which traces back through the Latin verb 'commandare', to order or to entrust. English speakers picked the word up during the South African wars of the late nineteenth century, especially the Second Boer War around 1900, when Boer 'commandos' won a reputation for fast, irregular fighting. In the Second World War the British revived the term for elite raiding troops, and that military sense is the one most people now recognise. The spelling keeps the doubled 'm' of 'command' and ends in the foreign '-o', so the trap is remembering both the two m's and that single final 'o'.

How the word is built

• command (from Latin commendare/commandare: to order, entrust)
• -o (noun suffix from Portuguese/Afrikaans)