conceder

Forms

conceder (first-person singular present concedo, first-person singular preterite concedi, past participle concedido)^[1] Houaiss records the 15th-century spellings cõceder and comçeder.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin concēdō (“to withdraw, give way; to grant”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from con- and cēdō (“to go, to give way”).^[5][1][6] Its senses ran from “to go away, withdraw” to “to give way, yield” and “to grant”, and Medieval Latin used it for granting privileges and land.^[5][7]

The same Latin verb is Galician conceder, Spanish conceder, Catalan concedir, French concéder and Italian concedere; the French verb is a learned borrowing of the 13th century.^[1][8] The simple Latin verb gave ceder.^[9]

For the simple verb de Vaan reconstructs *kesd-e/o- (“to go away, avoid”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱiesdh- (“to drive away; to go away”), which he also finds in Sanskrit and Avestan.^[10] Wiktionary instead gives *ked- (“to go, yield”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's earliest date, 907, is the form conzedo in a Latin charter, cited from Machado.^[2] The Portuguese verb appears in the 15th century, spelt cõceder and comçeder, and the noun comçedimento is of the same century.^[2][3] Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 renders it with Latin concedo and permitto, “to grant, to allow”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Gil Vicente and Camões use the verb for granting a favour or a prize: in the Lusíadas fortune lhe concede o despojo e o vencimento “grants him the spoils and the victory”.^[6] Barbosa (1611) explains it as “to give leave”, and Pereira (1697) adds the Latin sentio and subscribo, “to agree with”.^[12][13] Morais (1813) gives the sense “to consent” with em, as in conceder em alguma cousa, which he finds in the classical writers.^[14]

The original Caldas Aulete adds “to admit for the sake of argument”, with a quotation from Castilho.^[15] The noun concessão, from Latin concessio, is recorded in the 16th century, and in economics the verb came to mean granting a concession to a company.^[3][16]

Timeline

• 907 – the form conzedo in a Latin charter.^[2]
• 15th century – cõceder and comçeder.^[2]
• 15th century – the noun comçedimento.^[3]
• 16th century – Cunha's first record of conceder, and of concessão.^[3]
• 1567 – a private letter has concedeo.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders it with Latin concedo and permitto.^[11]
• 1611 – Barbosa: “to give leave”.^[12]
• 1813 – Morais records conceder em “to consent to”.^[14]
• 1844 – first record of concedente.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To grant, to make available, to give: O banco concedeu-lhe um empréstimo.^[2][16][18]
2. (transitive) To grant a right or privilege;^[2][16][15] (economics) to award a concession to operate something.^[2][16][15]
3. (transitive) To permit, to allow something to happen.^[2][16][18]
4. (intransitive, with em) To agree, to give in to a request or a point of view.^[2][16][15]
5. (transitive) To admit, to accept as true or as a hypothesis: Concedo que errei.^[2][16][18]

Word family

• concedente

Related words

• concessão
• ceder
• Latin concēdō
• Spanish conceder

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. conceder
3. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. conceder
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. conceder
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. concēdō
6. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 2, 373
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. concedere
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. concéder
9. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. ceder
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. cēdō
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. conceder
12. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. conceder
13. ^ Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. conceder
14. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 433
15. ^ a b c d Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. conceder
16. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. conceder
17. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. conceder
18. ^ a b c Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. conceder