cession

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English cession,^[2] borrowed from Old French cession and directly borrowed from Latin cessiō (“a giving up, surrender”).^[2][3][4][5] The OED gives only the French step,^[6] and the Oxford Dictionary of English and Dictionary.com only the Latin one.^[7][8] The Old French word is recorded from the 13th century,^[5] and the Anglo-Norman one from 1317, for a surrender or the giving up of a benefice.^[9] The Latin noun is formed from cessus, the past participle of cēdō (“to go away, yield”),^[10][6][8] the source of cede,^[11][12] and the verb is from Proto-Indo-European *ked- (“to go, yield”).^[5][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The giving up of a title or office, in the Rolls of Parliament for 1399: Thes Renunciation and Cession ware pleinelich and frelich accepted.^[2][11] Etymonline likewise has the late 14th century.^[5] The OED, in an entry not fully revised, begins only about 1440, with the Promptorium Parvulorum, which glosses Cessyone with Latin Cessio.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

In the 17th century it could be a giving way of any kind, to physical pressure or to persuasion, and both uses died out by the end of the century.^[6][3] Johnson (1755) still leads with "retreat; the act of giving way", quoting Bacon on a body that yields and so makes no sound, and only then gives resignation or the yielding up of something to another.^[13] The vacating of an office lasted until the 18th century,^[6][3] and a narrower term of church law, the vacating of a benefice, until about 1809.^[6] Meanwhile the sense that survives grew stronger: the formal surrender of territory by one ruler or state to another, recorded from 1678 in W. Temple,^[6] whose phrase a cession of Flanders is also Johnson's example.^[13] The OED also notes an early 19th-century misuse of the word for cessation.^[6]

Timeline

• 1399 – the relinquishing of a title or office.^[2][11] It is obsolete since the 18th century.^[3]
• c. 1440 – the giving up of a right or possession to another.^[6]
• late 16th century – in church law, the vacating of a benefice by taking another without dispensation.^[3] The OED's first quotation is from 1641.^[6]
• late 16th century – in law, a debtor's voluntary surrender of all effects to creditors.^[3] The OED's first quotation is from 1622.^[6]
• 1607 – yielding to moral force or persuasion (obsolete by 1612).^[6]
• 1626 – yielding to physical force or pressure (obsolete by 1693).^[6]
• 1678 – the formal giving up of territory to another ruler or state; also the territory itself.^[6]
• before 1806 – misused for cessation.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of ceding something, especially rights or property, to another.^[14][15][6]
2. The formal surrender of territory by one ruler or state to another; also the land so given up: The treaty ended with the cession of two provinces.^[6][14]
3. (law) In civil law, the voluntary surrender of all a debtor's goods to creditors.^[6][3]
4. (obsolete) A yielding to force or persuasion.^[15][6][3]
5. (obsolete) The giving up of a title or office.^[6][3]

Related words

• cessation
• concession
• precession
• procession
• recession
• secession
• succession
• cede
• session

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster