ceda

Forms

ceda (third-person singular present cedează, past participle cedat), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French céder (“to yield, give up”), a 19th-century neologism.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The French verb is taken from Latin cēdō (“to go; to withdraw; to yield”).^[2][6] Marcu names the Latin verb as a second source beside the French one.^[7]

DELR places a group of later loans of the same Latin family around it: cesiune, concesie and concede, loans from French and school Latin.^[2] Some legal words of this family had a Hungarian pronunciation in Transylvania, such as the variant țedent of cedent “assignor”.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1833;^[5][2] DELR gives 1847.^[5][2] The DA's first quotations are about territory: Costache Negruzzi writes of Turkey ceding half of Moldavia to the victorious power, and Hasdeu of the Moldavians ceding Chilia to Hungary for a time.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The legal sense “to hand over a property or right” came first, and the commercial “to sell on, transfer” followed it.^[8][3] The intransitive “to give way, stop resisting” is in Tiktin's example cel mai cuminte cedează “the wiser one gives way”, which the DA also quotes.^[5][8] Tiktin also has a nu-i ceda cuiva “not to be inferior to someone”, in fortune or rank.^[5] Of illnesses and pain it means “to abate”, of things “to bend or break under pressure”, a sense Șăineanu already gives, and in sport “to give up the contest”.^[3][9][4]

Timeline

• 1833 – the first record cited by Tiktin.^[5]
• 1836 – the related legal noun cedent.^[2]
• 1847 – the first record DELR gives.^[2]
• 1893–1895 – Damé glosses it with French céder.^[10]
• 1929 – Șăineanu lists “to give up willingly”, “to stop resisting” and “to bend under a weight”.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To give up possession of a property or right to someone, free or by sale; of persons, to transfer a claim to another.^[3][4]
2. (intransitive) To yield, to stop resisting; to admit that someone is right; to submit.^[3][4][1]
3. (sport) To admit defeat and abandon the contest.^[3][4]
4. (of an illness or pain) To abate, to grow less.^[3][4]
5. (of objects) To give way under pressure; to bend, buckle or break: Raftul a cedat sub greutatea cărților.^[3][4]
6. (transitive) To give up one's seat, or the right of way, to someone.^[4]

Related words

• cedent
• cesiune
• concede
• concesie
• retroceda
• French céder
• Latin cēdō

Usage notes

Besides the regular present cedez, MDA2 records an old present ced, cezi, cedă, still used in elevated style.^[4] Tiktin records an obsolete variant țedui.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. ceda
3. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 167
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 353
5. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. ceda
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. ceda
8. ^ a b c Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. ceda
9. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 117
10. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. ceda