negotiate
Formsnegotiates, negotiating, negotiated
- 1To discuss something with others in order to reach an agreement or settle on terms.
Both governments are willing to negotiate over the disputed border.
She negotiates skillfully whenever a conflict threatens the team.
Similarbargain, haggle, parley
Note
Underneath the diplomacy is a Latin word for work: negotium, "business," built from nec "not" and otium "leisure," so business was simply the absence of ease. English took the verb around 1598. In this use it stands without an object: parties negotiate, or negotiate over a border. the deal-settling use instead names what gets agreed.
- 2To arrange or settle something, such as a deal or treaty, by mutual agreement.
Diplomats negotiated a ceasefire that held for several months.
The company will negotiate licensing terms with several partners.
Similarbroker, arrange, settle, agree, secure
Note
Computing has taken up this sense without changing it. A client and a server negotiate a network protocol, settling the terms of their exchange before any data moves, with no person at the table. The grammar stays the same throughout: the object is the outcome, whether a contract, a ceasefire, a licensing deal, or, in Timothy Garton Ash's Guardian column of 2013, big free trade agreements.
- 3To successfully make one's way through or over a hazard, obstacle, or difficult course.
The pilot negotiated a narrow gap between two storm fronts.
Climbers negotiate the crevasse using ropes and fixed anchors.
Similarnavigate, clear, cross, traverse
Note
Roads and terrain are where this sense lives. A driver negotiates curves, and walkers negotiate a mountain track. It stretches easily to figurative courses: in 2012 Kevin Mitchell wrote that Novak Djokovic "had negotiated his own tricky passage" through a day at Wimbledon. The object is always the obstacle or route, never another person, and that is the quickest way to tell it from bargaining.
- 4To transfer a financial instrument, such as a check or bill, to another person along with all the original holder's rights.
The merchant negotiated the bill of exchange to settle his debt.
Holders may negotiate a promissory note simply by endorsing and delivering it.
Similartransfer
Note
What changes hands here is a piece of commercial paper, such as a check, draft, or promissory note. It passes to a new holder who takes over all the rights of the old one. The "bill" in the phrase "to pass, as a bill" is a bill of exchange, not a bill before a legislature. That is easy to misread, because legislatures are also said to pass bills.
Less common meanings
- 5To conduct business dealings with others or engage in commerce.
Note
Plain trading, with no haggling toward terms implied, and now obsolete. It sits closest to the Latin negotior, "to do business, trade," behind the conferring sense. John Evelyn's diary shows it in use, with merchants of many nations "negotiating in this famous Emporium." In older texts, read it as "doing business." Modern readers would hear only bargaining.
- 6To engage in intrigue or scheming.
Certaine it is, shee was a busie negotiating woman.
1622, Francis, Lord VerulamNote
A pejorative turn, now obsolete, in which dealing becomes meddling. Francis Bacon, writing in 1622, calls a woman "a busie negotiating woman," and the participle there marks a schemer, not a diplomat. In early modern prose, when negotiating describes a person's character rather than a deal, read it as intrigue. Do not revive it, because the modern sense would swallow the insult.
Practice
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Origin
Borrowed around 1598 from Latin negōtiātus, the participle of negōtior ("to do business, trade"). This came from negotium ("business"), formed from nec ("not") and otium ("leisure, ease, inactivity").