Etymologically
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concedere

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Pronunciation

  • /konˈt͡ʃɛ.de.re/[1]

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
  • 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