Endorsed

How to spell endorsed

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce endorsed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does endorsed mean?

1. verbPublicly declared support or approval for a person, product, or course of action.
2. verbSigned the back of a cheque or document to make it payable or to transfer it.

Endorsed in a sentence

• The board endorsed the new safety policy without a single objection.

• She endorsed the cheque before depositing it into the joint account.

• Several famous athletes endorsed the running shoe in its launch campaign.

• He endorsed the bill of exchange over to his supplier.

Where does endorsed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word goes back to the Latin noun dorsum, meaning 'back', the same root that gives us 'dorsal' for the fin on a fish's back. In Medieval Latin the verb indorsare was coined to mean 'to write on the back of something', because approvals, signatures and notes were literally inked onto the reverse of a document. English took it through Old French endosser in the late 1300s, and early use was strictly physical: you endorsed a cheque or a deed by signing its back. From that signing of approval the figurative meaning grew, so that by the 1800s a person could be endorsed, meaning publicly backed or recommended. Knowing that the middle holds 'dors', the Latin for 'back', is the surest way to remember the s and the o that writers so often muddle.

How the word is built

• en- (in, on)
• dors (back, from Latin dorsum)
• -ed (past tense suffix)