Commend

How to spell commend

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce commend

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does commend mean?

1. verbTo praise someone or something formally, especially in public or in writing.
2. verbTo entrust someone or something to another person's care or keeping.

Commend in a sentence

• The manager wrote to commend the team for meeting a tight deadline.

• In his will he chose to commend his children to his sister's care.

• The judge took a moment to commend the witness for her honesty.

• She asked the captain to commend the cargo to a trusted agent at the port.

Where does commend come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin commendare, formed from the intensive prefix com- and the verb mandare, which literally meant 'to put into someone's hand' and so 'to entrust' or 'to commit to another's care'. That same mandare gives us 'mandate' and 'command', and a strengthened form of it sits inside 'recommend', which explains why these relatives all share the spelling pattern. English took commend in through Old French in the 1300s, at first meaning 'to entrust' or 'to give in charge', as when one commended a soul or a task to someone's keeping. From the idea of entrusting something with approval grew the modern dominant sense of speaking warmly in praise of a person or thing. The single -m- in the middle is the common trap, since speakers half expect a doubled consonant; remembering the root mandare, with its lone m, helps fix the correct spelling.

How the word is built

• com- (intensive, thoroughly)
• mend (from Latin mandare: to entrust or commit)