WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF COMMUNIQUÉ?
Communiqué “an official bulletin or communication” is a borrowing from French, in which it means “communicated” and is the past participle of the verb communiquer “to communicate.” Communiquer comes from Latin commūnicāre “to impart, make common,” based on the adjective commūnis “common,” which itself is likely related to mūnus (stem mūner-) “gift, duty” and immūnis “exempt from taxes” (compare English remunerate and immunity). The French suffixes -é and -i are used to mark past participles and derive from Latin -ātus and -ītus, which are preserved in English as -ate and -ite, in Portuguese and Spanish as -ado and -ido, and in Italian as -ato and -ito or -uto. Communiqué was first recorded in English in the early 1850s.
