Etymologically
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decessio

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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