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recede

UK/ɹɪˈsiːd/US/ɹɪˈsiːd/
verbB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,754 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: receded, receding, recedes

To recede is to move back and grow more distant. The floodwater receded, a receding hairline, recede into memory.

It carries a slow retreat rather than a sudden one, which is why tides, hairlines and glaciers take it. Things also recede figuratively as they lose importance. Note the Latin cedere, to go, which is behind concede and precede as well.

Definitions of recede

  1. 1verbrecedeTo move back and grow more distant.B2+

    “As the flood waters receded, people returned to clean their homes.”

recede is a moving back.

Where it comes from

Latin recedere means to go back, from re-, back, plus cedere, to go. Concede and precede share the root.

  1. Latin

    recedere — to withdraw; to go back

  2. Middle French

    receder

  3. Middle English

    receden

  4. English, today

    recede

Built from

  • cedere · Latin — to go

Middle English receden, from Middle French receder and its etymon Latin recedere (“to withdraw; to go back”), from re- + cedere (“to go”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

recede in the wild

  • A fall line often will recede upstream as a river cuts out the uphill dense material, forming "c"-shaped waterfalls and exposing bedrock shoals.

    Fall line

  • Ribbing has a strong tendency to contract laterally, forming small pleats in which the purl stitches recede and the knit stitches come forward.

    Ribbing (knitting)

  • Here, flood waters are retained until river levels recede below bankfull conditions.

    Wet Moor

  • Generally, the symptoms recede after discontinuing use of the drugs.

    Drug-induced lupus erythematosus

  • The setbacks recede in shallow formations from a large 16-story platform.

    120 Wall Street

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the cedere family

recedingrecede

recede — used about once every 27,725 pages · #13,754 · point at the bar for the others