decessio

Forms

dēcessiō f (genitive dēcessiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dēcēdō (“to go away, depart”) + -tiō,^[2][1][3] formed on the participle stem ⟨dēcess-⟩.^[1] dēcēdō is a compound of dē- and cēdō¹ (“to go, proceed”), which de Vaan, following Lubotsky, connects with Sanskrit सेधति (sedhati, “drives away”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and the TLL record it first in Cicero,^[5][3] who uses it in the Verrines of a governor's departure from his province: “neither before the arrival of Gaius Verres nor after his departure”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Cicero uses it for any going away, and especially for the withdrawal of a magistrate from the province he had governed;^[6][2] in good prose it is the opposite of accessiō.^[6] From a going away it came to mean a decrease or diminution, as of a sum or of the tithe,^[6][2] and in Celsus the abatement of a fever.^[6][2] The jurists use it of a reduction,^[2][6] and Gellius uses it of a word's departure from its original meaning.^[2][6]

The Historia Augusta has it for a death,^[6] and this sense of “decease” is the usual one in medieval charters and chronicles;^[7][8] Niermeyer also gives “succession, generation”.^[7] English took it over as decession, “departure”, around 1400.^[9]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a governor's departure and of a decrease.^[2][6][5]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus uses it of the abatement of a fever.^[6][5]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius uses it of a change in the meaning of words.^[2][5]
• 934 – A charter preserved in a 14th-century copy uses it for a man's death.^[8]
• c. 1400 – English borrows it as decession.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A going away, departure, especially of a magistrate from his province.^[2][6]
2. A departure from a condition, a change.^[2]
3. A decrease, diminution; the abatement of a disease.^[2][6]
4. (Late Latin) Decease, death.^[6][7][8]
5. (Medieval Latin) Succession, generation.^[7]

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com