Language Of Confusion: -Ceed, Part II

Part two of the words that come from the Proto Indo European ked-, to go or yield. Some of these words make sense. Some… not so much.
 
First, cease. It showed up in the fourteenth century, coming from the Old French cesser and classical Latin cessare, to put an end to (or, you know, cease). That’s actually from another verb, cedere, to give up or yield, and which we spoke of last week as being from ked-. Well, I guess if you cease doing something, you yield to not doing it? Does that sentence even make sense?
 
Next we’ll be looking at a bunch of words that have both -cede and -cess versions. Recede showed up in the early fifteenth century, while recess showed up in the mid sixteenth century, though back then it meant the act of receding, then meaning hidden/remote come the early seventeenth century. Not really sure how receding came to mean hidden, but that formed into meaning “receding into private chambers”, which became a niche (or receding space) in the late seventeenth century, and then in the early nineteenth century, a “place in recess”, as in, people not there. That was a weird journey. Recession is definitely a lot closer to recede than recess is now. Anyway, recede came from the Old French recede, recession from the modern French recession, and all three words come from the classical Latin recedere (withdraw), recessus (withdrawal), and recessionem (also withdrawal), the latter two just being different tenses of recedere. Re- means back, so the word is to give back? To yield back? Well, it kind of makes sense. Not the recess part, though.
 
Will concede make more sense? Probably not. It showed up in the mid seventeenth century, though concession showed up earlier, in the mid fifteenth century. Concession is from the Old French concession and classical Latin concessionem, just concession, and concede is from the French concéder and the root verb, the classical Latin concedere, to concede. The con- prefix is thought to just be intensive here (as in, just for emphasis), so to concede is to really yield. Huh, I guess I was wrong. It actually does make sense. Well, there’s a first time for everything.
 
Finally today we’ll look at accede, and the far more common access. Accede showed up in the early fifteenth century, while access beat it out by nearly a century and showed up in the early fourteenth century. Access is from the Old French acces and classical Latin accessus, which means something like approach, while accede comes from the Latin accedere, to approach. The prefix is from ad-, which means to, so to accede is to approach to. Well, approaching is required for accessing something, I guess. Also, fun fact, access didn’t show up as a verb until 1962, and was associated with computing. If you ever write something set before then, don’t use to access!!!
 
I just found that really funny.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

Language of Confusion: Endings

I did beginnings, so it’s time to do endings, too. Except for end and conclude, which were both covered at other times.

Close

Close is one of those annoying words with a million definitions and a pronunciation that changes depending on the context. Honestly, I’m just glad that all the different forms are related because I’ve had it up to here with words that randomly sound alike but are completely different. Anyway. Enough rambling. Close as in shut showed up in the thirteenth century, which was a century before close as in near. Both words come from the Old French clos-, the past participle stem of the verb clore, to shut (it took on the connotation of “closing a gap”, hence near). That word is from the classical Latin  clausus, closed, from the verb claudere, to close. That can be traced all the way back to the Proto Indo European klau- which means… hook? What?

Finish

Finish first showed up in the late fourteenth century, from the Old French finiss- the past participle stem (two in a row here) of fenir, to finish. It’s from the classical Latin finire, to limit or end, related to finis, end or boundary. It might be related to figere, the origin word for fix, but it’s definitely related to finite.

Final

Final is of course also related, just with a slightly different origin. It showed up before finish, in the earlyfourteenth century, from the Old French final and Late Latin finalis, concluding or final. And that of course is from finis. Yeah, this one shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

Cease

Cease showed up in the fourteenth century as cesen, to stop moving/acting. It’s from the Old French cesser, with basically the same meaning, and classical Latin cessare, which is just to stop. That’s from another Proto Indo European word, ked-, which is the origin for pretty much anything with -cess or -cede in it.

Terminate

Terminate showed up in the early fifteenth century from the classical Latin terminatus, terminating. That’s from the verb terminare, which is just to terminate. That one’s obviously related to terminal, which showed up in the mid fifteenth century from the Latin terminalis, the adjective form of terminare.

No great mysteries here. I’m kind of relieved. This one was pretty straight-forward.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

Orbis Latinus