Cede or seed?
cede is a verb meaning “To give up; yield to another”; seed is a noun meaning “Any propagative portion of a plant which may be sown, such as true seeds…”. Use cede as a verb and seed as a noun (seed is also a verb: “To plant or sow an area with seeds”). They sound the same (/siːd/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) seed is about 32 times as common as cede.
What is the difference between cede and seed?
| cede | seed | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | noun, verb |
| Meaning | To give up; yield to another Same as above | Any propagative portion of a plant which may be sown, such as true seeds, seed-like fruits, tubers, or bulbs A fertilized and ripened ovule, containing an embryonic plant To plant or sow an area with seeds |
| Example | Edward decided to cede the province | If you plant a seed in the spring, you may have a pleasant surprise in the autumn |
| Forms | cedes, ceding, ceded | seeds |
| Pronunciation | /siːd/ | /siːd/ |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words | 23 times per million words |
Sources: cede and seed in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of cede and seed
cede
- 1
To give up; yield to another
Edward decided to cede the province
- 2
Same as above
After figuring out the seating arrangement and ceding him the window seat, I took my own seat by the aisle
- 3
To give way
seed
- 1
Any propagative portion of a plant which may be sown, such as true seeds, seed-like fruits, tubers, or bulbs
- 2
To plant or sow an area with seeds
I seeded my lawn with bluegrass
- 3
A fertilized and ripened ovule, containing an embryonic plant
- 4
To shed seeds (refers to plants)
These poppies have not seeded themselves yet
- 5
Any small seed-like fruit
If you plant a seed in the spring, you may have a pleasant surprise in the autumn
- 6
To cover thinly with something scattered; to ornament with seedlike decorations
- 7
An amount of seeds that cannot be readily counted
The entire field was covered with geese eating the freshly sown seed
- 8
To start; to provide, assign or determine the initial resources for, position of, state of
A venture capitalist seeds young companies
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, cede or seed?
cede appears about once in every 1 million words; seed 23 times per million words.
cede about once in every 1 million wordsseed 23 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search cede vs seed?
“cede vs seed” is searched about 10 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“seed vs cede”, “cede or seed”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.