1575 T. Tymme in F. Bryan tr. A. de Guevara Looking Glasse for Court (new ed.) Ep. Ded. sig. Aii The recommending of this learned and pleasaunt Treatise, the more generally to haue it perused (right Honorable) is the cause why I haue dedicated the same to your Honour.

1591 R. Percyvall Bibliotheca Hispanica Dict. at Encomienda Recommending, commendations.

1608 R. Parsons Iudgm. Catholicke English-man 82 The naming and recommending of an Oath of fidelity.

1760 J. Clark Montanus Redivivus Appendix 98 Our Saviour..preaches Morality;..the enforcing and recommending of it, is the moral Design of almost all his Parables.

1844 C. Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit xix. 242 ‘Many's the time that I've not breakfasted at my own expense along of your kind recommending, sir; and many's the time I hope to do the same in time to come,’ said Mrs. Gamp, with an apologetic curtsey.

1998 Grocer 12 Sept. 32/2 The recommending of a few peas barely represents a whole hearted endorsement of the frozen food industry.

1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Recommendatif, recommendatiue, recommending.

1693 J. Dryden tr. Juvenal in J. Dryden et al. tr. Juvenal Satires xvi. 311 One Happy Hour is to a Souldier better Than Mother Juno's recommending Letter.

1741 S. Richardson Pamela III. xxxvii. 358 It seems that the recommending Friend had praised the poor Man for a Genius above the Sphere he was placed in.

1769 ‘Junius’ Stat Nominis Umbra (1772) I. xv. 106 The..purity of your manners..and a thousand other recommending circumstances.

1872 ‘G. Eliot’ in J. W. Cross George Eliot's Life (1885) III. 172 The outside is not, I think, quite equally recommendable and recommending.

1943 Amer. Catholic Sociol. Rev. 4 62 The book is enhanced by a recommending foreword of Reverend Charles C. Miltner.

1997 Globe & Mail (Toronto) (Nexis) 26 Apr. d12 They both..wrote him recommending letters that earned him a Stegner Fellowship in fiction at Stanford University.