Other forms: commands
A command is an order given, or authority over a group. Give a command, take command, chain of command.
The military sense carries both: to have command is to hold the authority, and a command is one exercise of it. In computing, a command is an instruction typed to a program. Command of a language means mastery of it. Note that the Latin means to entrust, from mandare, the same root as mandate.
1nouncommandAn order given.
“The soldiers waited for the officer's command before opening fire.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
command is an order or an authority.
Old French comander comes from Latin commendare and mandare, to entrust. Mandate, demand and recommend come from the same entrusting.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)meh₂-
Middle English
comaunden
English, today
command
From Middle English comaunden. From Middle English commanden, commaunden, comaunden, comanden, from Old French comander, from Latin commando, from Latin commendo. Ultimately from com- + mandō (whence ultimately also a doublet of commend (a doublet), mandate, and recommend), from manus + -dō. Compare typologically поручи́ть, поруче́ние, руководи́ть, руководи́тель related to рука́.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA