Definition of descent:

• Incursion; sudden attack; especially, hostile invasion from sea; -- often followed by upon or on; as, to make a descent upon the enemy.
• The vaults or hollow places made by undermining the ground.
• the descendants of one individual; " his entire lineage has been warriors"
• a downward slope or bend
• the kinship relation between an individual and the individual's progenitors
• a movement downward
• The act of descending, or passing downward; change of place from higher to lower.
• 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.
• Derivation, as from an ancestor; procedure by generation; lineage; birth; extraction.
• Transmission of an estate by inheritance, usually, but not necessarily, in the descending line; title to inherit an estate by reason of consanguinity.
• Inclination downward; a descending way; inclined or sloping surface; declivity; slope; as, a steep descent.
• That which is descended; descendants; issue.
• A step or remove downward in any scale of gradation; a degree in the scale of genealogy; a generation.
• Lowest place; extreme downward place.
• Incursion; sudden attack; especially, hostile invasion from sea; - often followed by upon or on; as, to make a descent upon the enemy.
• Change from a higher to a lower place; a sudden hostile invasion or attack; a coming from a common ancestor.
• Act of descending: motion or progress downward: slope: a falling upon or invasion: derivation from an ancestor.
• Motion downward; slope; invasion; derivation from an ancestor.
• The act of descending; decline; fall.
• A declivity; slope.
• Lineage; birth.
• Descendants; issue.
• An invasion.
• The act of descending; downward slope; progress downward; fall from a higher to a lower state or station; invasion of troops from the sea; transmission by succession or inheritance; birth; a single degree in the scale of genealogy; descendants; lowest place; the motion of a body caused by the attraction of gravity; a passing from a note or sound to one more grave or less acute.

Usage examples for descent

1. " No- I've done nothing but look at the letter- except to trace the Duval descent," Croyden replied.  In Her Own Right by John Reed Scott

2. The descent of the temperature seemed to have a like effect on the barrel of potatoes and the load of coal in the Wiggses' parlor.  Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch by Alice Caldwell Hegan

3. The isthmus being ninety rods across, from bank to bank, the descent of the water would be nearly half an inch to a foot.  First History of New Brunswick by Peter Fisher Commentator: William Fisher