Recipe

This common everyday word is in fact the imperative of the Latin verb recipere meaning ‘to take’. The imperative form of recipere is recipe meaning ‘take’, from the notion that all cooking recipes usually start with the imperative ‘take’, as in ‘take two eggs, two cups of flour’ etc. The word dates back to the 15th century when physicians and apothecaries would write this word on prescribed medicines as in ‘Recipe - '(take) one spoonful every three hours’.