Endorsements

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Public statements or actions showing approval or support for someone or something ; signatures or marks added to a document to confirm its authenticity or to approve it
2. The act of backing or recommending a person, product, or idea ; the addition of one’s signature on a document such as a check to validate or transfer it
3. Expressions that indicate agreement or encouragement towards a cause or individual ; signatures on legal or financial papers that confirm consent or authorization

Etymology: The word "endorsement" is a plain formation: "endorse" plus the suffix "-ment". The verb "endorse" was itself a borrowing from Anglo-French, and its underlying sense is physical. It comes from the Old French "endosser", meaning to put on one's back or to place a burden upon something, built from "en-" (in, on) and "dos" (back), which in turn descends from Latin "dorsum". The suffix did the rest of the work. English took "-ment" from Old French, where it had come down from Latin "-mentum", a marker that turned verbs into nouns naming an action or its result. That pattern is why so many English nouns end this way, from "judgement" to "payment". Adding it to "endorse" yielded a noun for the act of endorsing, and over time that act came to mean the written or spoken backing of a person, product or idea.

Synonyms: support, approval, recommendation, validation

Antonyms: rejection, disapproval