ceder

Forms

ceder (first-person singular present cedo, first-person singular preterite cedí, past participle cedido)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cēdō (“to go away, withdraw; to yield, give way”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] Corominas dates it from Fernando de Herrera (1582 or a little earlier) and notes that Quevedo still mocked it as a mannerism of the Gongorist poets.^[2] The Vox dictionary places the borrowing in the 17th century.^[5] Earlier records exist in the eastern texts: DICCA-XV dates the first in its corpus to 1427 and reports one of 1394 in the CORDE, and the CDH has it in an Aragonese deed of gift of 1394.^[6][7] English has the cognate cede.^[1]

The Latin verb is traced by de Vaan to Proto-Italic *kezdō “to go away, avoid” and further to Proto-Indo-European *ḱyesdʰ- (“to drive away; to go away”), with cognates in Sanskrit and Avestan verbs meaning “to drive away”.^[8][1] The OLD analyses it instead as the particle ce- with the root Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”), comparing Ancient Greek ὁδός (hodós, “road”).^[9] Bénaben thinks it may be related to cadō (“to fall”).^[10] In Latin it meant “to go, proceed” and “to withdraw”, and with a dative “to give way to someone, to yield”.^[9][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Aragonese deed of 1394 in the CDH the donor gives and cedes houses, fields and vineyards to a monastery: do e cedo e de present livro “I give and cede and hand over at once”, the legal sense of transferring a property or a right.^[7] The same formula is common in documents from the Americas: in Mexico City in 1536 a man writes çedo e traspaso e hago çesión “I cede, transfer and make cession” of a share in some mines.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The Diccionario de Autoridades gives three senses: to hand over or transfer a thing or a right, illustrated by Mariana (acordaron que las Infantas cediessen a su hermano el derecho que pretendían tener al Reino “they agreed that the princesses should cede to their brother the right they claimed to the kingdom”); to give in or submit, acknowledging another's superiority; and to redound to someone's benefit or harm.^[13] The Academy's 1817 edition added the sense “to abate”, said of the wind, a fever or the cold.^[14] Cuervo documents the older physical sense “to fall back, give way” in battle in Quevedo and Solís.^[15] Sailors used it of the wind losing force and of the sea calming.^[16][17]

The modern dictionary adds the senses of losing time or ground to a rival, of passing the ball to a nearby teammate in sport, and of a thing giving way or breaking under too much force.^[4] In Argentina, Mexico and Puerto Rico the intransitive verb has also meant “to consent, condescend”.^[18][19][20] In El Salvador ceder el charco is a humorous phrase for handing the microphone to someone else.^[21]

Timeline

• 1394 – an Aragonese deed of gift has do e cedo “I give and cede”;^[7][6] DICCA-XV reports this year from the CORDE.^[7][6]
• 1427 – the first record in the DICCA-XV corpus of the Crown of Aragon.^[6]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses Latin cedo as “to make room”.^[6]
• 1536 – the first record from the Americas, in a deed from Mexico City.^[12]
• c. 1580 – the first record in Corominas, in Fernando de Herrera.^[2][3]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds the sense “to abate”, of the wind or a fever.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives its etymology, from Latin cedĕre.^[22]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cede, transfer or hand over a thing, an action or a right to someone: Cedió su parte de la herencia a su hermana.^[4][1]
2. To lose time, ground or position to a rival.^[4]
3. (sports) To pass the ball to a teammate who is close by.^[4]
4. (intransitive) To give in, yield or submit: Al final cedió ante la presión.^[4][1]
5. (intransitive) Of the wind, a fever and the like: to abate, lose strength.^[4][23]
6. (intransitive) Of a thing: to lose some or all of its resistance or tension.^[4]
7. (intransitive) Of something under excessive force: to give way, break or come loose.^[4]
8. (intransitive, rare) To be inferior to something it is compared with.^[4]
9. (intransitive, rare) To turn out or redound to someone's benefit or harm.^[4][13]

Related words

• proceder
• Latin cēdō
• English cede

Usage notes

Ceder el paso means “to give way, let someone go first”, also on the road.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 12
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ceder
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. ceder
5. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. ceder
6. ^ a b c d e Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. ceder
7. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. ceder
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 120
12. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. ceder
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 253
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 192
15. ^ Cuervo, Rufino José (1886–1893), Diccionario de construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana, vols. I–II (A–D), París: A. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 2, 95
16. ^ O'Scanlan, Timoteo (1831), Diccionario marítimo español, Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 208
17. ^ Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 530
18. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 104
19. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 232
20. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 136
21. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. ceder
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 230
23. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ceder