Crossword Dictionary
succumb
succumb, succumbs, succumbed, succumbing - v
to yield to superior force
Use the verb succumb to say that someone yields to something they've tried to fight off, such as despair, temptation, disease or injury.
If you succumb to cancer, it means you die of it. From this sentence you can see that this verb is usually followed by the preposition to. The Latin root is succumbere, from the prefix sub- "under" plus -cumbere "to lie down."
etymology
late 15c. (Caxton), transitive, "bring down, bring low," a rare sense now obsolete; from Old French succomber "succumb, die, lose one's (legal) case," and directly from Latin succumbere "submit, surrender, yield, be overcome; sink down; lie under; cohabit with," from assimilated form of sub "under, beneath" (see sub-) + -cumbere "take a reclining position," related to cubare "lie down" (see cubicle).
The usual sense of "sink or give way under pressure or superior force" is recorded by c. 1600. As a euphemism for "to die," from 1849 on the notion of succumb to disease, injury, etc. Related: Succumbed; succumbing; succumbent; succumbence.