Concede

How to spell concede

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce concede

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does concede mean?

1. verbTo admit that something is true, or to surrender a point, contest, or right after resistance.

Concede in a sentence

• The candidate refused to concede until every vote was counted.

• A good negotiator knows when to concede a minor point to win the bigger one.

Where does concede come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin concedere, which combined the intensifying prefix con-, meaning 'completely' or 'together', with the verb cedere, meaning 'to go, withdraw, or yield'. The literal idea was to give way fully or to step back and allow something. English took it up in the early 1500s, partly through French, with the dual sense of granting something to another and of admitting that a claim or argument holds. The root cedere is remarkably productive, sitting inside a whole family of English words such as 'recede', 'precede', 'succeed', and 'proceed', all built on the notion of going or yielding. That shared cede ending is also the spelling trap: writers must remember it ends in c-e-d-e, not the -ceed of 'succeed' or 'proceed', nor the -sede of 'supersede'.

How the word is built

• con- (completely, from Latin com-)
• cede (to yield or go, from Latin cedere)