Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Descent

De·scent′ (dē·sĕnt′), 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.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.