- recipe (n.)
- 1580s, "medical prescription," from Middle French récipé (15c.), from Latin recipe "take!," second person imperative singular of recipere "to take" (see receive); word written by physicians at the head of prescriptions. Figurative use from 1640s. Meaning "instructions for preparing food" first recorded 1743. The original sense survives only in the pharmacist's abbreviation Rx.
