Commandment

//kəˈmɑːndmənt// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A divinely ordained command, especially one of the Ten Commandments. countable, uncountable

    "A new commandement I giue vnto you, That yee loue one another, as I haue loued you, that yee alſo loue one another."

  2. 2
    Any of the Ten Commandments.
  3. 3
    a doctrine that is taught wordnet
  4. 4
    Something that must be obeyed; a command or edict. archaic, countable, humorous, uncountable

    "Pau. Pray you then, / Conduct me to the Queene. / Gao. I may not (Madam) / To the contrary I haue expreſſe commandment."

  5. 5
    something that is commanded wordnet
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  1. 6
    The offence of commanding or inducing another to violate the law. countable, uncountable
  2. 7
    The act of commanding; exercise of authority. countable, obsolete, uncountable

    "To rule, is vnderſtoode to haue the higheſt and ſupreme authoritie of commaundement."

Synonyms

All synonyms
behestbiddingcanoncodecommandconvention

Example

More examples

"If God had given an eleventh commandment, I wonder what it would have been."

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English comaundement, from Old French comandement, from comander. See command.

Related phrases

11th commandmentten commandments

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.