Verb

(head)

(commend)

Verb

(en verb)

To congratulate or reward.

To praise or acclaim.

* Dryden

Historians commend Alexander for weeping when he read the actions of Achilles.

To entrust or commit to the care of someone else.

* Bible, Luke xxiii. 46

Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.

To mention by way of courtesy, implying remembrance and goodwill.

* Shakespeare

Commend me to my brother.

To recommend.

* Sir M. Hale

Among the objects of knowledge, two especially commend themselves to our contemplation.

* Bible, Romans xvi. 1

I commend unto you Phoebe our sister.

To force in a mental way.

Verb

(head)

(archaic) (commence)

Verb

(commenc)

To begin, start.

* (William Shakespeare)

Here the anthem doth commence .

* (Oliver Goldsmith)

His heaven commences ere the world be past.

* , chapter=4

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.}}

To begin to be, or to act as.

* (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

We commence judges ourselves.

(UK, intransitive, dated) To take a degree at a university.

* Fuller

I question whether the formality of commencing was used in that age.