Other forms: succeeded, succeeding, succeeds
To succeed is to reach the result you were working for. Succeed in business, she succeeded at last, the plan succeeded.
The construction is succeed in doing something, never succeed to do. The second sense is to come after somebody in a position: he succeeded her as head, succeeded to the throne — and there the preposition is to. That second meaning is the older one and explains the noun succession. Note successful and success, and that nothing succeeds like success is a proverb about momentum.
1verbsucceedTo reach the result you were working for.
“She succeeded in getting the whole thing rewritten.”
2verbpositionTo come after somebody in a position.
“He succeeded his father in the same office.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
succeed is an achieving or following.
Latin succedere is sub-, under or up, plus cedere, to go — to go up close behind. Coming after somebody was the first meaning, and doing well was originally the result of following on well, which is how one verb ended up with two unrelated-looking senses.
Latin
succedo — to go under, go from under, come under, approach, follow, take the place of, receive by succession, prosper, be successful
Old French
succeder
English, today
succeed
From Old French succeder, from Latin succedo (“to go under, go from under, come under, approach, follow, take the place of, receive by succession, prosper, be successful”). Partly speed, of which the original sense “to succeed” only survives in a few expressions such as Godspeed.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA