Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To move back or away from a limit, point, or mark: waited for the floodwaters to recede.
- v. To slope backward.
- v. To become or seem to become fainter or more distant: Eventually, my unhappy memories of the place receded.
- v. To withdraw or retreat.
- v. To yield or grant to one formerly in possession; cede (something) back.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To move back; retreat; withdraw; fall away.
- To withdraw an affirmation, a belief, a demand, or the like; turn back or aside.
- To have a backward inclination, slope, or tendency: as, a receding coast-line; a receding chin. Synonyms To retire, retrograde, give way. See
retreat . - To cede back; grant or yield to a former possessor: as, to recede conquered territory.
Wiktionary
- v. To move back, to move away.
- v. To cede back; to grant or yield again to a former possessor.
- v. To take back.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To move back; to retreat; to withdraw.
- v. To withdraw a claim or pretension; to desist; to relinquish what had been proposed or asserted.
- v. To cede back; to grant or yield again to a former possessor.
WordNet 3.0
- v. become faint or more distant
- v. retreat.
- v. pull back or move away or backward
Etymologies
- From Middle French receder, from Latin recedere ("to withdraw; to go back"), from re- with cedere ("to go"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English receden, from Old French receder, from Latin recēdere : re-, re- + cēdere, to go. re- + cede. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The Court is unwilling, however, to recede from the position announced in its repeated decisions.”
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“According to these proxies, the climatic evolution of East Africa over the past 150 years (‘modern climate†™) is characterized by a drastic dislocation around 1880, when lake levels dropped notably and glaciers started to recede from the latest maximum extent.”
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“It required an effort for her to recede from the comfortable habit of thought she had attained to the point of view from which the aspirations of the soul had appeared of more importance than the satisfactions of the body.”
“Charles II was forced to recede from the French alliance by his Parliament in 1674.”
“The change is not in God, but in the circumstances which regulate God's dealings: just as we say the land recedes from us when we sail forth, whereas it is we who recede from the land (Eze 18: 21; 33: 11).”
“It's getting a lot of attention in the world of new media, mainly because Epstein spends a couple of its chapters (previously published in The New York Review of Books) discussing the opportunities now offered by digital technology to do what he has been trying to do throughout his career: resuscitate serious publishing and bookselling, and America's literary life itself, even as the material essence of those institutions — paper and ink — begins to recede from the world.”
“He often expanded his poetic rhapsodies on the sex life of plants with prose footnotes that also ascribe a wide range of intentionality and emotion to the plant kingdom: The vegetable passion of love is agreeably seen in the flower of the parnassia, in which the males alternately approach and recede from the female; and in the flower of nigella, or devil in the bush, in which the tall females bend down to their dwarf husbands.”
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“It will also be remembered when despatches of a somewhat irritating character, passed between the Governments of the United States and Great Britain with regard to the celebrated Trent affair that Her Majesty revised the despatch which Lord John Russell proposed to send to the Government of the United States, and suggested certain modifications in the language used by Lord John Russell, which enabled the Government of the United States to recede from the position it had taken in this matter without loss of dignity.”
“The feather'd nations shed a floating shade; part of the tail on the right side of the fish strikes the water at the same time that another oblique plain strikes it on the left side, hence in respect to moving to the right or left these percussions of the water counteract each other, but they coincide in respect to the progression of the fish; this power seems to be better applied to push forwards a body in water, than the oars of boats, as the particles of water recede from the stroke of the oar, whence the comparative power acquired is but as the difference of velocity between the striking oar and the receding water.”
“So they're still waiting for that river to recede, which is really just a glorified creek, but now rushing torrent and has been the last couple of days.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘recede’.
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*e?e
Words whose last and third-to-last letters are both "e".
here, eke, were, complete, mete, replete, adhere, where, mere, sphere, austere, aesthete and 99 more...
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POL - legislation
US Congress/Senate + Westminster + European Parliament usage
across the desk, act, action, adjournment, adjournment sine die, adoption, advise and consent, amendment, analysis of the b..., apportionment, appropriation, appropriations limit and 652 more...
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On with their heads!
Words that make other words with the addition of one letter at the beginning. The resulting words are tagged "behead".
men, his, yes, any, iota, limb, aged, laid, land, lead, read, word and 327 more...
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Lesson 9
dumbfounded, ensue, era, flourish, garrison, grievous', hoard, inundate, invincible, nomad, placate, principal and 3 more...
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Wordly Wise Vocab 9
dumbfound, ensue, era, flourish, garrison, grievous, hoard, inundate, invincible, nomad, placate, principal and 3 more...
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Vocabtech9e
sacrifice, ruthless, recede, principal, nomad, invincible, inundate, hoard, grievous, garrison, flourish, era and 3 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Allographic Homophones
Words that can be pronounced identically but are spelled differently. I've started with unusual or extensive sets. In some of these sets, no one speaker would pronounce them all the same. I've trie...
air, are, ayr, ayre, e'er, ere, err, eyre, heir, apatite, appetite, picnic and 226 more...
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GRE
high frequent
industrious, feckless, debunk, quintessence, loquacious, obsequious, laconic, plethora, lugubrious, serendipity, facetious, turgid and 261 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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Reading Random
Got unknown words randomly
delinquency, modicum, dissuade, incendiary, destitute, lachrymose, plight, ruse, empirical, pedantic, demography, giggle and 444 more...
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Monovocalics
Words that have only one of the vowels. On this list I include only words with at least three vowels. When I first started the list, if a word had several forms, I generally listed only the one wit...
syzygy, mirific, cumulus, homolog, monocot, bedewed, jezebel, referee, bikini, minikin, locomotor, terebenthene and 2359 more...
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verbs
deprecate, behold, bemoan, circumscribe, circumspect, pivot, discombobulate, rummage, chasten, chastise, undulate, snog and 122 more...
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GRE
predisposed, browbeaten, hegemonic, corollary, mendacity, remnant, futile, touchstone, upshot, intuition, perseverance, perk and 214 more...
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2007bee-r03
antioxidant, rambla, trafficking, volplane, sluice, jettison, insomnolence, egyptiac, claque, provincial, satisfice, trumpery and 95 more...
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The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
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