concedere

Forms

concedere (first-person singular present concèdo, first-person singular past historic concèssi or concedétti or (traditional) concedètti or concedéi, past participle concèsso, auxiliary avére)^[1] The past participle was long conceduto;^[2] concesso was considered poetic until the 19th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin concēdō (“to withdraw, give way; to grant, admit”), a compound of con- and cēdō (“to go away, yield”).^[2][3][4][5] The Latin verb already had the senses “to grant” and “to admit”.^[3][6] Its past participle concessus and the derivatives concessiō and Late Latin concessīvus gave concesso, concessione and concessivo.^[2][3]

The verb exists only as a learned word in the Romance languages: Engadine conceder, French concéder (from 1365, Oresme), Spanish conceder (about 1335) and Portuguese conceder.^[7] A variant with a change of conjugation, Old Occitan concedir, Catalan concedir, appears also in a few Old Aquilan forms.^[7] The Latin sense “to pass, elapse” survives only in Italian.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Viterbese vernacular text of Ranieri, of the first half of the 13th century;^[8][2] DELI dates the sense “to give, grant, permit” to Rainerio da Perugia in the 13th century.^[8][2] The Zingarelli has about 1261.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used concedere for assigning property, a right or an office, for granting help, pardon or freedom from a position of power, for giving oneself into someone's power, and for permitting something to happen; of time it meant “to pass”.^[8] The sense “to admit as true” is recorded before 1332, in Alberto della Piagentina, and is shared by French and Catalan.^[2][7] Dante writes in the Vita Nuova that greater licence of speech is granted (conceduta) to poets than to prose writers.^[10]

The participle concesso remained a poetic form for a long time and replaced conceduto in prose only in the 19th century.^[2] In literary Italian the intransitive verb meant “to yield”, as in Leopardi's se non concedi al fato, “if you do not yield to fate”.^[4][11] The reflexive concedersi means to allow oneself something, and in literary use, of a woman, to consent to sexual relations.^[9][12][11]

Timeline

• First half of the 13th century – A Viterbese text of Ranieri has the first recorded concedere.^[8]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses concessione.^[2]
• 1292–1293 – Dante uses the verb in the Vita Nuova.^[7]
• Before 1306 – Iacopone uses the participle conceduto.^[2]
• Before 1332 – Alberto della Piagentina uses it for “to admit as true”.^[2]
• Before 1374 – Petrarch uses concesso.^[2]
• 1365 – French concéder is first recorded.^[7]
• 19th century – Concesso displaces conceduto in prose.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To grant, to give as a favour or by authority: L'azienda ha concesso un aumento a tutti i dipendenti.^[4][12][13]
2. (transitive) To allow, to permit: I genitori le hanno concesso di uscire fino a tardi.^[4][12][11]
3. (transitive) To admit, to accept as true: Su questo punto hai ragione, te lo concedo.^[4][12][9]
4. (intransitive, literary) To yield, to give way.^[4][12][11]
5. (reflexive) Concedersi: to allow oneself something: Quest'estate mi concedo due settimane al mare.^[9][12][13]
6. (reflexive, literary) Concedersi: to give oneself, to consent to sexual relations.^[9][11][13]

Word family

• concessione
• concesso
• concessivo
• concessionario
• concedente
• concedibile

Related words

• cedere
• Latin concedo
• French concéder

Usage notes

Ammesso e non concesso introduces a hypothesis granted only for the sake of argument.^[4][14] The past historic is concessi, less often concedei or concedetti; the past participle is concesso, rarely conceduto.^[1][12][9]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1043
6. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
7. ^ a b c d e f Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 16, 883
8. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
9. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli