concede

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin concēdō (“to withdraw, give way, yield; to grant, allow, agree to”),^[2][3][4][5] perhaps partly borrowed from French through French concéder, as most dictionaries allow.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]} The Latin verb is from con-, here probably an intensive prefix, and cēdō (“to go, yield, give way”),^[6][13][7] which is also the source of cede; the American Heritage Dictionary and Etymonline trace it to Proto-Indo-European *ked- (“to go, yield”).^[13][6] The OED compares Anglo-Norman and Middle French conceder (“to grant a privilege or request”), recorded in Old French from the 13th century but rare before the 16th, and the Romance verbs Spanish conceder, Portuguese conceder and Italian concedere.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To acknowledge the truth or fairness of a statement or claim; to grant that something is so: before 1513, in John Irland's Scots Meroure of Wyssdome.^[2] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English likewise date the word to the late 15th century,^[9][12] while Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1632 and the 1630s respectively.^[7][6]

Semantic evolution

The word followed the two main Latin senses, admitting a point and giving something up.^[2][6] The intransitive sense, to make a concession or to give in, is recorded from 1626,^[2][8] and the transitive "to grant or surrender something claimed by another" from 1632.^[2][7] Johnson (1755) defined it as to yield, to admit, to grant, to let pass undisputed.^[14] In American politics, from 1824, a candidate or party conceded an election when admitting that it was lost;^[2][6] in sport, from 1887 and first in football, a team concedes a corner or a goal to the other side,^[2] while from 1925 it may concede a lead or advantage.^[2] From 1805 the verb is also used with a complement, to acknowledge someone or something to be the thing named.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1513 – to acknowledge something as true, to grant a point.^[2]
• 1626 – intransitive, to make a concession, to give in.^[2][8]
• 1632 – to grant or surrender something requested or claimed.^[2][7]
• 1824 – originally in the United States, to admit the loss of an election.^[2][6]
• 1887 – sport, to allow the opposing team a corner or a goal.^[2]
• 1925 – to let a lead or advantage slip.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To admit or acknowledge, often reluctantly, that something is true or right: She conceded that the plan had its weak points.^[15][8][2]
2. To give up or grant something such as a right or a territory: The landlord conceded a lower rent.^[15][8][2]
3. To admit defeat in an election or contest before the result is official: He conceded the race late on election night.^[15][8][2]
4. (sport) To allow the other side to score a goal or gain a point or a corner.^[2]
5. To make a concession; to give in.^[8][2]

Word family

• concededly
• conceder
• unconceded
• unconceding

Related words

• concession
• cede
• accede
• exceed
• proceed
• recede
• succeed

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins