- yield
- yield vb1 produce, turn out, *bearAnalogous words: *generate, engender, breed, propagate: create, *invent: form, shape, *make, fabricate, fashion2 *relinquish, surrender, cede, abandon, leave, resign, waive3 Yield, submit, capitulate, succumb, relent, defer, bow, cave can all mean to give way to someone or something that one cannot further resist.Yield (see also RELINQUISH; BEAR 2), when the reference is to a person implies being overcome (as by force, argument, or entreaty) (yield to persuasion){
yield to temptation
}{he never yields except when the matter under discussion is of no significance to him
}{the great principle in a contest with a child is: do not yield but do not punish— Russell
}but when the reference is to a thing, the word implies elasticity, or lack of firmness, strength, or endurance in the thing that gives way{the door suddenly yielded to her hand— Austen
}{the house they went to was ... a human burrow or habitation that had yielded at every point to the crotchets and meanderings of a growing family— Cheever
}Submit carries a more definite implication of contention or conflict than yield and, therefore, suggests more strongly a surrender after resistance to another's will, or because of a thing's strength or inevitableness{all is not lost—the unconquerable will . . . and courage never to submit— Milton
}{the Indian summer of her heart, which was slow to submit to age— Stevenson
}{a long diatribe against Pitt for having tamely submitted to the rebuffs of the French Directory— Quiller-Couch
}{submitted to their joking with the best grace she could— Wouk
}Capitulate can mean to surrender on terms definitely agreed upon, but in its common extended use, it more often centers attention on a definite submission to a force or power that one has not the strength, the skill, or the will to overcome{I always tip for special services rendered but I will not capitulate before sheer impertinence— Wechsberg
}{the universities would capitulate to a young, vigorous and revolutionary creed— Moberly
}Succumb carries a stronger implication than any of the preceding terms of weakness or helplessness in the person or thing that gives way or of strength or irresistibility in the person or more often the thing that causes the giving way. The suggestion of sinking under that force or power is usually so strong in succumb that the word frequently implies a disastrous outcome (as death, destruction, or subjugation) (succumb to pneumonia){the best of constitutions will not prevent ambitious politicians from succumbing . . . to the temptations of power— Huxley
}{true passion . . . must be crushed before it will succumb— Meredith
}All of the preceding terms usually imply a giving way on the part of a person or sometimes a thing that has not or cannot maintain the upper hand; they therefore often imply a weakening of the one that gives way.Relent, by contrast, implies a yielding on the part of the one who has the upper hand and who has been severe or harsh in his attitude to another person or fixed in his determination (as to punish, to interfere, or to frustrate). The term therefore implies a softening or mollifying that turns him from his previous course{can you hear a good man groan, and not relent?—Shak.
}{when a second appeal, couched in more urgent terms, was dispatched to him, he relented— Cerf
}Defer implies a yielding or submitting to because of respect or reverence for another or in recognition of another's authority or superior knowledge{everybody must defer ... a nation must wait upon her decision, a dean and chapter truckle to her wishes— Sackville-West
}{clearly conscious of her success and of the way these Londoners were deferring to her— Dahl
}Bow is a picturesque equivalent of defer or submit; it may suggest a yielding through courtesy or through subjugation (bow to the inevitable){bow to established authority
}{he admired the tribal discipline which made May bow to this decision— Wharton
}Cave, usually with in, can be a close synonym of succumb, but it often suggests resistance to pressure to the point of exhaustion and sudden collapse{in the end government caved in, and unconditionally agreed to inquiry— Punch
}Analogous words: surrender, cede, waive (see RELINQUISH): concede, accord, award, *grant
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
