Word.ws English Dictionary

indorse

indorse is the archaic spelling of endorse.

Meaning of endorse

Verb

endorse (third-person singular simple present endorses, present participle endorsing, simple past and past participle endorsed)

  1. (transitive) To express support or approval, especially officially or publicly; to give an endorsement.
    • The president endorsed John Smith as senator.
    Synonyms:
    underwrite
  2. (transitive) To write one's signature on the back of a cheque, or other negotiable instrument, when transferring it to a third party, or cashing it.
  3. (UK, transitive) To give notice of something in a document.
    • The court endorsed his driving record with three penalty points for the drink-driving.
  4. (transitive) To report (a symptom); to describe.

See all 5 meanings of endorse

Forms of indorse

third-person singular presentindorses
present participleindorsing
past participleindorsed
pastindorsed

Origin of indorse

Alteration influenced by Medieval Latin indorsare of Middle English endosse, from Old French endosser (“to put on back”), from Latin dossum, alternative form of dorsum (“back”), from which also dorsal (“of the back”). That is, the ‘r’ was dropped in Latin dossum, which developed into Old French and then Middle English endosse, and then the ‘r’ was re-introduced into English via the Medieval Latin indorsare, which had retained the ‘r’; at the same time the ‘e’ (French) was changed to ‘i’ (Latin) (in-, rather than en-). Note that the alternative form endorse is now more common, retaining the restored ‘r’ but reverting to the initial ‘e’, rather than the Latinate ‘i’.

Words formed from indorse

Questions about indorse

What is indorse the archaic spelling of?
Indorse is the archaic spelling of endorse.

Words near indorse in the dictionary

  1. Indore
  2. indorenate
  3. indorsable
  4. indorsation
  5. indorsations
  6. indorse
  7. indorsed
  8. indorsee
  9. indorsees
  10. indorsement
  11. indorsements

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: indorse (page history and authors); endorse (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “indorse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/indorse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.