# Recommendation
## Overview
**Recommendation** means a suggestion for a beneficial course of action or a formal endorsement of a person's abilities. The word operates across casual ('I recommend this restaurant'), professional ('a letter of recommendation'), and institutional ('policy recommendations') registers.
## Etymology
From Medieval Latin *recommendationem*, from *recommendare* ('to commend again, to entrust'), from *re-* (intensive) + *commendare* ('to entrust, praise'), from *com-* ('with, intensively') + *mandare* ('to entrust, commit, order'). Latin *mandare* is itself a compound of *manus* ('hand') and *dare* ('to give') — literally 'to give into the hand.'
Latin *mandare* ('to put into someone's hand, to entrust, to order') generated a productive English vocabulary:
- **Command**: *com-* + *mandare* — to order with full authority (to entrust completely) - **Commend**: *com-* + *mandare* — to praise, to entrust to someone's care - **Demand**: *de-* + *mandare* — to order away from, to insist upon - **Mandate**: *mandatum* — an authoritative order, something entrusted - **Remand**: *re-* + *mandare* — to send back into custody (re-entrust to a jailer) - **Recommend**: *re-* + *commendare* — to entrust again, to commend to another - **Mandatory**: required by mandate - **Countermand**: *contra-* + *mandare* — to order against, to cancel a previous order
All share the core image of placing authority or responsibility in someone's hands.
## Letters of Recommendation
The institutional practice of the **letter of recommendation** has medieval roots. In the early Christian church, *litterae commendaticiae* ('letters of commendation') were documents issued by a bishop to travelers, vouching for their good standing and entitling them to hospitality from other Christian communities. The practice extended into academic and professional life, where a recommendation letter transfers a person's reputation from one who knows them to one who does not.
The etymological sense is preserved: a recommendation literally 're-entrusts' — it places a person in a new set of hands with an assurance of their worth.
## Related Forms
The family includes **recommend** (verb), **recommendable** (adjective), and the informal abbreviation **rec** (as in 'any recs for dinner?'). The double *m* in *recommend* (not *reccomend*) reflects its derivation from *re-* + *commendare*.