To move back or away from a previous position; to gradually diminish or fade.
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Latin15th centurywell-attested
From Latin 'recēdere' (to go back, to withdraw, to move away from), composed of 're-' (back, again, away) + 'cēdere' (to go, to move, to yield, to give way). ThePIErootunderlying 'cēdere' is *ḱed- (to go, to move). The verb 'cēdere' produced an exceptionally rich cluster of Englishwords
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A 'receding hairline' uses theword in its most literal Latin sense — hair that 'goes back.' The economic term 'recession' carries the samemetaphor: the economy is 'going back,' retreating from its previous position. The genetic term 'recessive' (a trait that 'retreats' when paired with a dominant one) was coined
through its prefixed Latin compounds: 'proceed' (pro- + cedere, go forward), 'exceed' (ex- + cedere, go beyond), 'concede' (com- + cedere, yield together), 'precede' (prae- + cedere, go before), 'accede' (ad- + cedere, go toward), 'intercede' (inter- + cedere, go between), 'secede' (se- + cedere, go apart). 'Recede' preserves the most literal spatial
— always with the sense of things moving away from a prior reference point. Key roots: re- (Latin: "back, again"), cēdere (Latin: "to go, move, yield"), *ḱed- (Proto-Indo-European: "to go, yield").