Word Finder - descent

definition

An instance of descending; act of coming down.

example

We climbed the mountain with difficulty, but the descent was easier.

definition

A way down.

example

We had difficulty in finding the correct descent.

definition

A sloping passage or incline.

example

The descent into the cavern was wet and slippery.

definition

Lineage or hereditary derivation.

example

Our guide was of Welsh descent.

definition

A drop to a lower status or condition; decline.

example

After that, the holiday went into a steep descent.

definition

A falling upon or invasion.

definition

A particular extension of the idea of gluing. See Descent (mathematics).

The descent felt as long as their two day trip.

They began the long descent, hand in hand.

The flakes drifted directly down, undisturbed in their descent by any hint of a breeze in the still night air.

He tried to snooze but only managed a wink or two before the plane began its descent into Norfolk.

He was the son of Eurypon and fourth in descent from Procles.

A large element of the population is of German descent or German birth, and two newspapers are published in German, besides three dailies, three weeklies and a semi-weekly in English.

The boy's mother was of Huguenot descent.

The fact that in tabby Persians the body-markings are never so strong as in the short-haired breeds is in some degree confirmatory of this, as suggesting descent from a nearly wholecoloured type.

His family on both sides was of Poitevin descent.

A few years afterwards he married again, his second wife being Agnes, daughter of Sir James 1 The descent of the first Napier of Merchiston has been traced to "Johan le Naper del Counte de Dunbretan," who was one of those who swore fealty to Edward I.

He was educated at Loretto, Eton and Oriel College, Oxford, and in 1869 was restored by Act of Parliament to the barony of Balfour of Burleigh, to which he was entitled by his descent from the 5th baron, who was attainted after the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

Above them, the headlights of the two vehicles grew more distant, finally hidden from view by their angle of descent.

One of these myths is the famous story of Ishtar's descent to Irkalla or Aralu, as the lower world was called, and her reception by her sister who presides over it; the other is the story of Nergal's offence against Ereshkigal, his banishment to the kingdom controlled by the goddess and the reconciliation between Nergal and Ereshkigal through the latter's offer to have Nergal share the honours of the rule over Irkalla.

The family was illustrious and wealthy, and claimed descent from Constantine.

The first recorded person of European descent to enter the limits of Nevada was Francisco Garces (1738-1781), of the Order of St Francis, who set out from Sonora in 1775 and passed through what is now the extreme southern corner of the state on his way to California.

The Morgani family are of Afghan descent.

The Hartungen are probably identical with the divine youths (mentioned in Tacitus as worshipped by the Vandal Naharvali or Nahanarvali), from whom the Vandal royal family, the Asdingi, claimed descent.

Before full adjustment has been attained the river bed may be broken in places by waterfalls or interrupted by lakes; after adjustment the bed assumes a permanent outline, the slope diminishing more and more gradually, without a break in its symmetrical descent.

Most interesting is the avifauna of the Sandwich islands; entirely devoid of Psittaci and of Coraciiformes, these islands show an extraordinary development of its peculiar family Drepanidae, which are probably of South or Central American descent.

The victor of Flodden is the common ancestor of all living Howards that can show a descent from the main stock.

An act of 1627, one of several such aimed at aggrandizing families by diverting the descent of dignities in fee from heirs general, entailed the earldom and castle of Arundel upon Thomas, earl of Arundel and Surrey and the heirs male of his body "and for default of such issue, to the heirs of his body."

His father was an Irishman and his mother of Scotch-Irish and Huguenot descent.

Of the various "Siciliae populi," we hear of Greeks, Saracens, Lombards, sometimes of Franci, for by that time there were many French-speaking settlers in Sicily who were not of Norman descent.

We have traced a definite line of descent for feudal institutions from Roman days through the Merovingian and Carolingian ages to the 10th century.

The Layards were of Huguenot descent.

The Egyptian pilgrim road crosses the peninsula from Suez to Akaba, passing the post of An Nakhl, with a reservoir and a little cultivation, about half way; a steep descent leads down from the edge of the Tih plateau to Akaba.

The people, according to their own traditions, are derived from two stocks, the pure Arabs, descended from Kahtan or Joktan, fourth in descent from Shem; and the Mustarab or naturalized Arabs, from Ishmael.

Apart from the tribesmen there is in Hejaz and south Arabia a privileged, religious class, the Sharifs or Seyyids, who claim descent from Mahomet through his daughter Fatima.

Hence it is that the Nubians of this district, fairest of all the race, still claim Arab and Osmanli (Bosnian) descent.

The governor in these years (1865-1868) was a Republican, the caster of the single Union vote in the convention of 1861; but the sixteenth legislature (1866-1867) was largely Democratic. It undertook to determine the rights of persons of African descent, and regrettable conflicts followed.

The Mingals, who, conjointly with the Brahuis, occupy the hills south of Kalat to the limits of the Rajput province of Las Bela, claim Mongolian descent, and traces of a Mongolian colony have been found in Makran.

His father was minister of the place for fifty years, and traced his descent from a long line of Presbyterian ministers on Deeside.

Few Englishmen retained estates of any importance after the Conquest, but one, Elfin, an under-tenant of Henry de Ferrers, not only held a considerable property but was the ancestor of the Derbyshire family of Brailsford, The families of Shirley and Gresley can also boast an unbroken descent.

They celebrated the festival of Demeter when the corn began to shoot, and the descent of Proserpine when it was ripe.

The bishops' Interpretations and Further Considerations, issued in 1560, tolerated a lower vestiarian standard than was prescribed by the rubric of 1559; the Advertisements, which Parker published in 1566, to check the Puritan descent, had to appear without specific royal sanction; and the Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum, which Foxe published with Parker's approval, received neither royal, parliamentary nor synodical authorization.

They traced their descent to ancestors who had achieved distinction in the political life of medieval Florence and Sarzana; Francesco Buonaparte of Sarzana migrated to Corsica early in the 16th century.

What is equally noteworthy, as explaining the characteristics of Napoleon, is that his descent was on both sides distinctly patrician.

The party which had set up the Committee of Public Safety was now struck down by the very man who through the Directory inherited by direct lineal descent the dictatorial powers instituted in the spring of 1793 for the salvation of the republic. It remains to add that the suspects in the plot of October 1800 were now guillotined (31st of January 1801), and that two of the plotters closely connected with the affair of Nivose were also executed (21st of April).

The family of Carteret was settled in the Channel Islands, and was of Norman descent.

His father, a farmer, also named John, was of the fourth generation in descent from Henry Adams, who emigrated from Devonshire, England, to Massachusetts about 1636; his mother was Susanna Boylston Adams. Young Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1755, and for a time taught school at Worcester and studied law in the office of Rufus Putnam.

There is a large settlement of mixed Portuguese descent, known as Feringhis.

Wallace (both at one time active entomological collectors) contain much evidence drawn from insects in favour of descent with modification.

When the slow folding of the strata is accompanied by a gradual local descent, a modified or " arrested " anticlinal structure, known as a " terrace " is produced, the upheaving action at that part being sufficient only to arrest the descent which would otherwise occur.

The squib is lowered after the torpedo, and, when exploded by the descent of the weight, fires the charge.

It is noticeable that it was on French soil that the seed had been sown.3 Preached on French soil by a pope of French descent, the Crusades began - and they continued - as essentially a French (or perhaps better Norman-French) enterprise; and the kingdom which they established in the East was essentially a French kingdom, in its speech and its customs, its virtues and its vices.

But the conception of the equality of the king and his peers in the long run led to hereditary monarchy; for if the king held his kingdom as a fief, like other nobles, the laws of descent which applied to a fief applied to the kingdom, and those laws demanded heredity.

Yet the high court, which decided all problems of descent, would naturally intervene if a problem of descent arose, as it frequently did, in the kingdom; and thus the barons had the right of deciding between different claimants, and also of formally "approving" each new successor to the throne.

Many Basuto at the public examinations take higher honours than competitors of European descent.

From Macclesfield a descent was made on Manchester; from Oakengates in South Shropshire came extensions to Herefordshire, Glamorganshire and Wiltshire, where the famous Brinkworth circuit was established.

The descent of alchemistical doctrine can thus be traced with fair continuity for a thousand years, from the Greeks of Alexandria down to the time when Latin alchemy was firmly established in the West, and began to be written of by historical authors like Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon and Arnoldus Villanovanus in the 13th century.