DESCEND, v.i. [L. To climb.] 1. To move or pass from a higher to a lower place; to move, come or go downwards; to fall; to sink; to run or flow down; applicable to any kind of motion or of body. We descend on the feet, on wheels, or by falling. A torrent descends from a mountain.The rains descended, and the floods came. Matt. 7.2. To go down, or to enter.He shall descend into battle and perish. Sam. 26.3. To come suddenly; to fall violently.And on the suitors let thy wrath descend.4. To go in; to enter.He, with honest meditations fed, into himself descended.5. To rush; to invade, as an enemy.The Grecian fleet descending on the town.6. To proceed from a source or original; to be derived. The beggar may descend from a prince, and the prince, from a beggar.7. To proceed, as from father to son; to pass from a preceding possessor, in the order of lineage, or according to the laws of succession or inheritance. Thus, an inheritance descends to the son or next of kin; a crown descends to the heir.8. To pass from general to particular considerations; as, having explained the general subject, we will descend to particulars.9. To come down from an elevated or honorable station; in a figurative sense. Flavius is an honorable man; he cannot descend to acts of meanness.10. In music, to fall in sound; to pass from any note to another less acute or shrill, or from sharp to flat.DESCEND, v.t. To walk, move or pass downwards on a declivity; as, to descend a hill; to descend an inclined plain. [But this may be considered as elliptical; on or along being understood.]
|