3 definitions found From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]: Descent \De*scent"\, noun [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. From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]: descent noun 1: a movement downward 2: properties attributable to your ancestry; "he comes from good origins" [syn: {origin}, {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: {line of descent}, {lineage}, {filiation}] 5: a downward slope or bend [syn: {declivity}, {fall}, {decline}, {declination}, {declension}, {downslope}] [ant: {ascent}] 6: the descendants of one individual; "his entire lineage has been warriors" [syn: {lineage}, {line}, {line of descent}, {bloodline}, {blood line}, {blood}, {pedigree}, {ancestry}, {origin}, {parentage}, {stemma}, {stock}] From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]: 309 Moby Thesaurus words for "descent": 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

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