commendatio

Forms

commendātiō f (genitive commendātiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin commendō (“to entrust, recommend”) + -tiō,^[1][2][3] from con- and mandō (“to entrust”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Thesaurus finds it from Cicero on, and Cicero alone has about half of all its examples; among the poets only Publilius Syrus and Phaedrus use it, once each.^[3] His first sense is the entrusting of children or parents to someone's care.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From entrusting it came to mean recommendation and praise, as in Cicero's book that will be published under his friend's name even without his own recommendation.^[2][4] In rhetoric it is the part of a speech that wins favour for a cause, and it is also the recommendation of a candidate for office.^[2] Cicero uses it of the prompting of the eyes in memory, of favourable notice or esteem, and of what recommends a person, as a man “known only by himself, without any recommendation from his ancestors”.^[2]

In medieval texts it is an order or mandate, and the commendation of oneself to a lord, the homage of a vassal.^[5] Church Latin glosses it “recommendation”.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of entrusting, recommendation and esteem.^[2][3][7]
• c. 15 BC–c. 50 AD – Phaedrus uses it once.^[3][7]
• Middle Ages – The homage of a vassal to a lord.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The entrusting of someone to another's care.^[2][1]
2. Recommendation, praise; the recommendation of a candidate.^[2][4][1]
3. Favourable notice, esteem.^[2][1]
4. A ground of recommendation, an advantage.^[2]
5. (Medieval Latin) An order, mandate; the commendation of oneself to a lord, homage.^[5]

Related words

• commendō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de