DESCENT, n. 1. The act of descending; the act of passing from a higher to a lower place, by any form of motion, as by walking, riding, rolling, sliding, sinking or falling.2. Inclination downward; obliquity; slope; declivity; as the descent of a hill, or a roof.3. Progress downward; as the descent from higher to lower orders of beings.4. Fall from a higher to a lower state or station.5. A landing from ships; invasion of troops from the sea; as, to make a descent on Cuba.6. A passing from an ancestor to an heir; transmission by succession or inheritance, as the descent of an estate or a title from the father to the son. Descent is lineal, when it proceeds directly from the father to the son, and from the son to the grandson; collateral, when it proceeds from a man to his brother, nephew or other collateral representative.7. A proceeding from an original or progenitor. The Jews boast of their descent from Abraham. Hence,8. Birth; extraction; lineage; as a noble descent.9. A generation; a single degree in the scale of genealogy; distance from the common ancestor.No man is a thousand descents from Adam.10. Offspring; issue; descendants.The care of our descent perplexes most.11. A rank in the scale of subordination.12. Lowest place.13. In music, a passing from a note or sound to one more grave or less acute.
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