Procession comes from Old French procession, from Late Latin processio ('a going forward, advance'), from Latin procedere ('to go forward'), from pro- ('forward') + cedere ('to go, yield'). The historical chain includes Latin processio, Latin procedere, and Latin cedere. The quoted older senses, "a going forward, advance", "to go forward", "forward", and "to go, yield", supply the semantic anchors for procession. The formation is best read as compound and borrowed: the word procession carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "a group moving forward in an orderly line". English derivatives include processional and processionary; related English forms include proceed, process, and precession. The result is a noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.