conceder

Forms

conceder (first-person singular present concedo, first-person singular preterite concedí, past participle concedido)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin concēdō (“to withdraw; to yield; to grant”).^[2][3][4] Vox dates the borrowing to the 14th century.^[5] The Latin verb is formed from con- and cēdō (“to go, withdraw, yield”).^[6][1][7]

The same Latin verb is Catalan concedir, Portuguese conceder and French concéder.^[8][9][10] ceder is a separate, later borrowing of the simple verb, first recorded about 1582 and still a mannered word for Quevedo.^[4]

De Vaan thinks the original meaning of the simple verb was “to yield, desist”, which became the more general “to go” in Old Latin.^[11] He rejects the old analysis as “here” + “sit”, and cites Lubotsky's comparison with Indo-Iranian verbs for “withdraw”, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱiesdʰ-.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas first finds the Spanish verb in Juan Manuel, about 1335, in the sense “to grant, bestow”; the earlier examples in Oelschläger's list seem to be Latin.^[4][2][12] The earliest hits in the CDH are indeed Latin charters, such as a renunciation of 1218 with concedo concessionem aui mei “I grant my grandfather's grant”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The verb comes from the language of charters, where Medieval Latin dono et concedo “I give and grant” was a set formula and concedere meant to grant a privilege or a tenure.^[13][14] Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary of 1492 glosses concedo as dar & otorgar, and concedere naturae as “to die”.^[15] Covarrubias (1611) defined it as “to give, permit”.^[16]

In 1729 the Diccionario de Autoridades gave two senses: to grant a favour, the opposite of denying it, and to assent to what another says, a term much used in the schools (concedo la mayor “I grant the major premise”).^[17] Cuervo documented its constructions with quotations from Ribadeneira, Quevedo and Cervantes.^[18] The current DLE adds the sense “to attribute a quality to someone or something”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1218 – concedo appears in a Latin charter of the monastery of Oña.^[13]
• c. 1335 – first record in Spanish, in Juan Manuel.^[4][2][12]
• 1492 – Nebrija glosses Latin concedo as dar & otorgar.^[15]
• 1548 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as “to give, permit”.^[16]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the scholastic concedo la mayor.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology, from Latin concedĕre.^[20]

Meanings

Verb

1. To grant, give or bestow something as a favour: El ayuntamiento les concedió el permiso.^[3][1]
2. To concede, to admit a point in the arguments against one's own position: Te concedo que me equivoqué en eso.^[3][21]
3. To attribute a quality or condition to someone or something: No le concedieron ninguna importancia al rumor.^[3][5]

Related words

• concesión
• ceder
• Latin concēdō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ceder
3. ^ a b c d e 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. conceder
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 12
5. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. conceder
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. concedir
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 927
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. concéder
11. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
14. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
15. ^ a b 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. conceder
16. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 496
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 469
18. ^ 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, 310
19. ^ 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. conceder
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 269
21. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. conceder