cede

Etymology

It is borrowed from French céder or directly borrowed from Latin cēdō (“to go, proceed; to give way, yield, withdraw”).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The French verb is recorded from the 16th century.^[2][3] Etymonline traces the Latin verb to Proto-Italic *kesdō (“to go away, avoid”), from Proto-Indo-European *ked- (“to go, yield”).^[3][6] Barnhart and Klein instead take it from an earlier compound of a particle meaning "here", Proto-Indo-European *ke-, and the root Proto-Indo-European *sed-, which Barnhart glosses "sit" and Klein "go";^[7][8] Merriam-Webster and Klein compare Ancient Greek ὁδός (hodós, “way”).^[9][8] Ayto notes that its compounds gave English accede, concede, precede, proceed and succeed, and its past participle cessus ancestor, cease, excess and recession.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To give way, give place or yield to: 1633, in William Struther's True Happines;^[2][11] Skeat calls it a late word of that year.^[12] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date the word to the early 16th century.^[4][13]

Semantic evolution

Hoad dates the sense "give way" to the 17th century and "give up, yield" to the 18th.^[5] The intransitive sense died out after 1756,^[2][4] and the word survived in its transitive sense, to give up or formally surrender something to another, especially territory by treaty.^[2][3][9] Etymonline explains the Latin development through the idea of going away, withdrawing, giving ground.^[3] The word is also used of conceding a point in an argument,^[14] and in insurance of passing a liability to another insurer by reinsurance.^[9] In Scots law a cedent is a person who assigns property to another.^[4]

Timeline

• 1633 – intransitive, to give way, yield to (obsolete by 1756).^[2][11]
• 1749 – transitive, to give up, surrender, especially territory.^[9] The OED's first record of this sense is from 1754.^[2][3]
• 1756 – of possessions, to pass over to (obsolete).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To give up or surrender, especially territory or rights, by treaty or agreement: The province was ceded to its neighbour.^[14][9][2]
2. To transfer or assign property to someone.^[9]
3. To admit or concede a point in an argument.^[14]
4. To transfer an insurance liability to another insurer by reinsurance.^[9]
5. (obsolete, 1633–1756) To give way or yield to.^[2][4]

Word family

• ceder
• unceded
• retrocede

Related words

• accede
• antecedent
• cession
• concede
• exceed
• intercede
• precede
• proceed
• recede
• secede
• succeed
• supersede
• cease
• ancestor

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins