Talk:succeed
"succeed" versus "succede"[edit]
Are those two only two different spellings of the same word? I thought "succeed" as in "success" is an antonym to "fail" while "succede" as in "succession" is an antonym to "precede". - 193.84.186.81 01:17, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
- Those are both normally spelled "succeed". The two senses aren't associated with a difference in spelling. Succede is an alternate spelling (an English teacher might say a misspelling) of both. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:42, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
Rfv-sense "To go under cover." The closest I can find, and it is not very close, is that Century has an obsolete sense "To descend" quoting Dryden's translation of Virgil's Eclogues, "Or will you to the cooler cave succeed?" - -sche (discuss) 18:04, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
- However, the old OED defines that Dryden/Virgil cite as "intr. To come up or near to; approach. Obs. rare.", based on him using "Snakes, familiar, to the Hearth succeed." and "To his rough Palat, his dry Tongue succeeds." in the same work; they also take Spenser's line "Who euer, as he saw him nigh succeed, Gan cry aloud with horrible affright" to be this sense. They also have a sense for when something "succeeds" by harming, citing these works, if we could find one more cite of that... but none of this helps with the challenged sense... - -sche (discuss) 01:04, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
- This has been present right from the very beginning of this entry in 2004. That entry appears to have been copied from Webster, and sure enough, in Webster we find it with that same Dryden quote that was in Century. Not sure what Webster was on about; "to descend" is more than enough. This, that and the other (talk) 06:42, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
- Aha! I've reworded the sense and added the Dryden and Spenser cites. - -sche (discuss) 03:16, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
- This has been present right from the very beginning of this entry in 2004. That entry appears to have been copied from Webster, and sure enough, in Webster we find it with that same Dryden quote that was in Century. Not sure what Webster was on about; "to descend" is more than enough. This, that and the other (talk) 06:42, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
RFV-resolved This, that and the other (talk) 07:01, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Pronunciation differences?....[edit]
Although the two senses of the word are spelled the same, in my experience they're generally pronounced differently....If one's talking about "succeed" as a verb meaning "to have success with something," that's usually pronounced as "suck-seed," whereas if one's using "succeed" as a verb meaning "to follow after someone/something," that's usually pronounced as "suh-seed." Some discussion these differences should probably be included in the article. -2003:CA:870C:E06:A555:660A:85EF:3F8B 10:54, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
- I've never heard "suh-seed", and the double C spelling makes it improbable. You aren't getting mixed up with secede, are you? Equinox ◑ 12:49, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
- Nope - "succeed" in the sense of "successive." Could also be as "suss-seed." -2003:CA:870C:E06:A555:660A:85EF:3F8B 17:41, 31 May 2023 (UTC)