recipe (English)

Where does "recipe" come from?

English 'recipe' was borrowed from Middle French 'récipé', which came from Latin 'recipe', the second-person singular imperative of 'recipiō', meaning 'receive' or 'take'[1]. That verb combines 're-' with 'capiō' ('take, seize')[2], and the root traces back to a Proto-Indo-European '*kap-' meaning 'to seize'[4][6]. The first sense listed in English is a medicine formula or prescription, and the imperative 'take' suggests how such instructions were phrased. Over time the word widened to cover any set of instructions for mixing ingredients, then plans for reaching a result, and industrial process conditions. Today it is mostly associated with cooking. English 'receipt' and 'recept' are doublets that share this same ancestry.

Open questions

• The Proto-Indo-European root '*kap-' is reconstructed, and its origin may be non-Indo-European or sound-symbolic. [3] [6]
• The link between the imperative 'take' and the medicinal sense of 'recipe' is an interpretation, since the sources do not document how prescriptions were worded. [1]

Full etymology tree

• recipe (English), 'A formula for preparing or using a medicine; a prescription; also, a medicine prepared from such instructions.'
  • borrowed récipé (Middle French)
    • borrowed recipe (Latin), 'second-person singular present active imperative of recipiō'
      • derived recipio (Latin), 'to take back, (i.e., regain possession of something)'
        • prefix re- (Latin), 'back, backwards'
        • compound capio (Latin), 'to take, to capture, to catch, to seize, to take captive, to storm'
          • inherited kapio (Latin), 'Old Latin form of capiō'
            • inherited *kapjō (Proto-Italic), 'to take, seize'
              • inherited *kapyéti (Proto-Indo-European), 'to be grasping'
                • compound *kap- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to seize, to grab'
                • suffix *-yéti (Proto-Indo-European), 'Creates intransitive, often deponent, imperfective verbs from roots.'

Ancestors

• *kap- (Proto-Indo-European)
• recipé (Middle French)
• recipe (Latin)
• recipio (Latin)

Cognates and doublets

• receipt (English)
• recept (English)

Descendants and derived words

• love recipe (English)
• recipe book (English)
• recipe box (English)
• recipe dish (English)
• recipeless (English)
• recipelike (English)
• secret recipe (English)
• レシピ (Japanese)

Related words

• medicine (English)

Sources

1. recipe (English) - Wiktionary
2. recipio (Latin) - Wiktionary
3. kap- (Proto-Indo-European) - Wiktionary
4. capio (Latin) - Wiktionary
5. kapjō (Proto-Italic) - Wiktionary
6. kapyéti (Proto-Indo-European) - Wiktionary

Updated October 2026

More words starting with R

Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris