Definition of "descend"

descend

/dɪˈsɛnd/

verb
third-person singular simple present descends, present participle descending, simple past and past participle descended
1. (intransitive) To pass from a higher to a lower place; to move downwards; to come or go down in any way, for example by falling, flowing, walking, climbing etc.
  Quotations
  Rudy felt a gust of fear rise in his chest, and he looked again in the mirror, but the hangar and stable were now beyond the rise, out of sight, he was descending so fast.
  2002, John Griesemer, No One Thinks of Greenland: A Novel
  We will here descend to matters of later date.
  1648, Thomas Fuller, The History of the University of Cambridge since the Conquest
  And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Matthew 7:25
2. (intransitive, poetic) To enter mentally; to retire.
  Quotations
  [He] with holiest meditations fed, Into himself descended.
  1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J. M[acock] for John Starkey […], page 2
3. (intransitive, with on or upon) To make an attack, or incursion, as if from a vantage ground; to come suddenly and with violence.
  Quotations
  more aircraft descending on us than had done during previous visits from the snoopers in their usual ones and twos.
  2013, Deltrice Alfred Grossmith, Arctic Warriors: A Personal Account of Convoy PQ18
  1726, Alexander Pope, Odyssey
4. (intransitive) To come down to a lower, less fortunate, humbler, less virtuous, or worse, state or rank; to lower or abase oneself
  Quotations
  He […] began to descend to familiar questions, endeavouring to accommodate his discourse to the grossness of rustic understandings.
  August 25, 1759, Samuel Johnson, The Idler No. 71
5. (intransitive) To pass from the more general or important to the specific or less important matters to be considered.
6. (intransitive) To come down, as from a source, original, or stock
7. To be derived (from)
8. To proceed by generation or by transmission; to happen by inheritance.
  Quotations
  As to eleemoſynary corporations, by the dotation the founder and his heirs are of common right the legal viſitors, to ſee that that property is rightly employed, which would otherwiſe have deſcended to the viſitor himſelf: […]
  1765, William Blackstone, “Of Corporations”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book I (Of the Rights of Persons), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, page 469
  The possession of the sacred fire and of the ancestral sticks, carrying with it both political authority and priestly dignity, descends in the male line.
  1890, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 2, page 217
9. (intransitive, astronomy) To move toward the south, or to the southward.
10. (intransitive, music) To fall in pitch; to pass from a higher to a lower tone.
11. (transitive) To go down upon or along; to pass from a higher to a lower part of
  Quotations
  But never tear his cheek descended, / And never smile his brow unbended; [...]
  1816 February 13, [Lord Byron], “Parisina”, in The Siege of Corinth. A Poem. Parisina. A Poem, London: […] [T[homas] Davison] for John Murray, […], stanza XX, page 87, lines 536–537

Definition of "descend"

descend

verb

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