Adjacent Words

Descent definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

DESCENT, n.
1. The act of descending; the act of passing from a higher to a lower place, by any form of motion, as by walking, riding, rolling, sliding, sinking or falling.
2. Inclination downward; obliquity; slope; declivity; as the descent of a hill, or a roof.
3. Progress downward; as the descent from higher to lower orders of beings.
4. Fall from a higher to a lower state or station.
5. A landing from ships; invasion of troops from the sea; as, to make a descent on Cuba.
6. A passing from an ancestor to an heir; transmission by succession or inheritance, as the descent of an estate or a title from the father to the son. Descent is lineal, when it proceeds directly from the father to the son, and from the son to the grandson; collateral, when it proceeds from a man to his brother, nephew or other collateral representative.
7. A proceeding from an original or progenitor. The Jews boast of their descent from Abraham. Hence,
8. Birth; extraction; lineage; as a noble descent.
9. A generation; a single degree in the scale of genealogy; distance from the common ancestor.
No man is a thousand descents from Adam.
10. Offspring; issue; descendants.
The care of our descent perplexes most.
11. A rank in the scale of subordination.
12. Lowest place.
13. In music, a passing from a note or sound to one more grave or less acute.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a movement downward
2: properties attributable to your ancestry; "he comes from good origins" [syn: origin, descent, extraction]
3: the act of changing your location in a downward direction
4: the kinship relation between an individual and the individual's progenitors [syn: descent, line of descent, lineage, filiation]
5: a downward slope or bend [syn: descent, declivity, fall, decline, declination, declension, downslope] [ant: acclivity, ascent, climb, raise, rise, upgrade]
6: the descendants of one individual; "his entire lineage has been warriors" [syn: lineage, line, line of descent, descent, bloodline, blood line, blood, pedigree, ancestry, origin, parentage, stemma, stock]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French descente, from Anglo-French descendre Date: 14th century 1. a. derivation from an ancestor ; birth, lineage <of French descent> b. transmission or devolution of an estate by inheritance usually in the descending line c. the fact or process of originating from an ancestral stock d. the shaping or development in nature and character by transmission from a source ; derivation 2. the act or process of descending 3. a step downward in a scale of gradation; specifically one generation in an ancestral line or genealogical scale 4. a. an inclination downward ; slope b. a descending way (as a downgrade or stairway) c. obsolete the lowest part 5. a. attack, invasion b. a sudden disconcerting appearance (as for a visit) 6. a downward step (as in station or value) ; decline <descent of the family to actual poverty>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 a the act of descending. b an instance of this. c a downward movement. 2 a a way or path etc. by which one may descend. b a downward slope. 3 a being descended; lineage, family origin (traces his descent from William the Conqueror). b the transmission of qualities, property, privileges, etc., by inheritance. 4 a a decline; a fall. b a lowering (of pitch, temperature, etc.). 5 a sudden violent attack. Etymology: ME f. OF descente f. descendre DESCEND

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Descent De*scent", n. [F. descente, fr. descendre; like vente, from vendre. See Descend.] 1. The act of descending, or passing downward; change of place from higher to lower. 2. Incursion; sudden attack; especially, hostile invasion from sea; -- often followed by upon or on; as, to make a descent upon the enemy. The United Provinces . . . ordered public prayer to God, when they feared that the French and English fleets would make a descent upon their coasts. --Jortin. 3. Progress downward, as in station, virtue, as in station, virtue, and the like, from a higher to a lower state, from a higher to a lower state, from the more to the less important, from the better to the worse, etc. 2. Derivation, as from an ancestor; procedure by generation; lineage; birth; extraction. --Dryden. 5. (Law) Transmission of an estate by inheritance, usually, but not necessarily, in the descending line; title to inherit an estate by reason of consanguinity. --Abbott. 6. Inclination downward; a descending way; inclined or sloping surface; declivity; slope; as, a steep descent. 7. That which is descended; descendants; issue. If care of our descent perplex us most, Which must be born to certain woe. --Milton. 8. A step or remove downward in any scale of gradation; a degree in the scale of genealogy; a generation. No man living is a thousand descents removed from Adam himself. --Hooker. 9. Lowest place; extreme downward place. [R.] And from the extremest upward of thy head, To the descent and dust below thy foot. --Shak. 10. (Mus.) A passing from a higher to a lower tone. Syn: Declivity; slope; degradation; extraction; lineage; assault; invasion; attack.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(descents) 1. A descent is a movement from a higher to a lower level or position. ...the crash of an Airbus A300 on its descent into Kathmandu airport. ? ascent N-VAR 2. A descent is a surface that slopes downwards, for example the side of a steep hill. On the descents, cyclists spin past cars, freewheeling downhill at tremendous speed. ? ascent N-COUNT 3. When you want to emphasize that a situation becomes very bad, you can talk about someone's or something's descent into that situation. ...his swift descent from respected academic to struggling small businessman. = decline N-SING: usu poss N into/from/to n [emphasis] 4. You use descent to talk about a person's family background, for example their nationality or social status. (FORMAL) All the contributors were of African descent. = origin, ancestry N-UNCOUNT: usu of adj N

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Fall, coming down. 2. Going down, descending, journey or voyage down. 3. Declivity, slope. 4. Extraction, derivation, parentage, genealogy. 5. Attack, assault, incursion, foray, raid, hostile invasion.

Moby Thesaurus

Brownian movement, Indian file, abasement, advance, affiliation, altitude peak, angular motion, apparentation, array, articulation, ascending, ascent, automatic control, axial motion, backflowing, backing, backset, backward motion, bank, birth, blast-off, blood, bloodline, branch, breed, brood, burn, burnout, buzz, career, catena, catenation, ceiling, chain, chain reaction, chaining, characterize, check, children, climbing, comedown, coming after, common ancestry, communicate, concatenation, concavity, connection, consanguinity, consecution, consecutiveness, construe, continuation, continuity, continuum, course, current, cycle, de-escalation, debasement, decadence, decadency, declension, declination, decline, declivity, deflation, deformation, degeneracy, degenerateness, degeneration, degradation, delineate, demotion, depict, depravation, depravedness, depreciation, depression, derivation, derogation, descendants, descending, describe, deterioration, detrusion, devolution, diminution, dip, direct line, discomfiture, disgrace, distaff side, distinguish, down, downgate, downgrade, downhill, downtrend, downturn, downward mobility, downward motion, downward trend, drift, driftage, drone, drop, ducking, dump, dying, ebb, ebbing, effeteness, elucidate, embarrassment, end of burning, endless belt, endless round, exemplify, explain, explicate, expound, extension, extraction, fading, failing, failure, failure of nerve, fall, falling-off, family, female line, file, filiation, flight, flow, flux, following, forward motion, fruit, gamut, gradation, grade, gradient, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, hang, hangdog look, hanging, hauling down, heirs, hollowness, hostages to fortune, house, hum, humbled pride, humiliation, ignition, illustrate, image, impact, impart, incline, inheritors, interpret, involution, issue, kids, lapse, launch, letdown, lift-off, limn, line, line of descent, lineage, little ones, logical sequence, loss of tone, lowering, male line, monotone, mortification, mounting, narrate, new generation, nexus, oblique motion, offspring, ongoing, onrush, order, order of succession, origin, passage, pedigree, pendulum, periodicity, phylum, picture, plenum, plummeting, plunging, portray, posteriority, posterity, postposition, powder train, procession, progeny, progress, progression, prolongation, put-down, queue, race, radial motion, random motion, range, rank, recite, recount, recurrence, reduction, reflowing, refluence, reflux, regression, rehearse, render, report, reticulation, retrocession, retrogradation, retrogression, reversal, reverse, reverse of fortune, rise, rising, rising generation, rocket launching, rotation, round, routine, row, run, rush, scale, seed, self-abasement, self-abnegation, self-diminishment, sept, sequence, series, set, setback, setdown, severe check, shame, shamefacedness, shamefastness, shoot, shot, side, sideward motion, single file, sinking, slippage, slope, slump, soaring, sons, spear side, spectrum, spindle side, state, stem, sternway, stirps, stock, strain, stream, string, subjunction, submergence, subsiding, succession, successiveness, suffixation, swath, sword side, thread, throwback, thrusting under, tier, train, traject, trajectory, trajet, transmit, treasures, trend, upward motion, velocity peak, wane, windrow, younglings, youngsters