secede

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin sēcēdō (“to go away, withdraw, separate”),^[2][3][4][5] formed from sē- (“apart”) and cēdō (“to go”),^[2][3][6][7] the latter from Proto-Indo-European *ked- (“to go, yield”).^[3][6] Barnhart treats the English verb as formed to go with the noun secession, which is recorded from 1533.^[8] From the Latin past participle, English also once had the noun secess, a going away, from the 1560s, and Chauliac has secesse, a purging of the bowels, in the early 15th century.^[3] The Latin verb is also related to cede.^[9][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To go away from one's companions, to go into retirement: 1702, in Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi.^[2][8][3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1749 as the first known use.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The sense of a private retreat did not last.^[7][2] The current one, a formal withdrawal from an alliance or from a political or religious body, is first recorded in Johnson's dictionary of 1755,^[2][8][3] which defines the verb as withdrawing from fellowship in any affair.^[11] According to Etymonline, it applied at first especially to the ministers who left the Church of Scotland about 1733, the Seceders,^[3] and the Shorter Oxford likewise records seceder for a member of the Secession Church.^[7] In American English, the noun secession referred to a state leaving the Union from 1830,^[8] and in 1861 the verb was used of the Southern states.^[3][12] A Latin use for a thing that draws back into the distance appears in Ruskin in 1856,^[2] and in the same year it is used of withdrawing from a conversation.^[2] The rare transitive use, to detach a territory, dates from 1946, in Faulkner.^[2][7]

Timeline

• 1702 – to go away from one's companions, retire.^[2][8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the word to 1749.^[10]
• 1755 – to withdraw formally from an alliance, union or religious or political body.^[2][8][3]
• 1856 – of a thing, to draw back into the distance.^[2]
• 1856 – to withdraw from taking part in a conversation.^[2]
• 1861 – of the American Southern states, to try to leave the Union.^[3]
• 1946 – transitive, to detach a territory from a federal union.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To withdraw formally from a federation, alliance, church or other organization: Three provinces voted to secede from the republic.^[13][10][2]
2. To leave a group or stop taking part in something; to quit.^[10][2]
3. (rare) To detach a territory from a federal union, or to cede a piece of land.^[2][7]
4. (obsolete, 1702) To go into seclusion or retirement.^[2][7]

Word family

• seceder

Related words

• secession
• cede
• recede
• concede

References

1. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ 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. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins