Verb

To happen.

To happen to.

Temptation befell me.

* Shakespeare

I beseech your grace that I may know / The worst that may befall me.

* {{quote-web, date=2013-04-15

, year= , first= , last= , author=Walter Russell Mead , authorlink= , title=The Wreck of the Euro , site=The American Interest citation , archiveorg= , accessdate=2013-04-16 , passage=As we’ve said before, with the exception of communism itself, the euro has been the biggest economic catastrophe to befall the continent (and the world) since the 1930s. }}

Verb

(en verb)

To pass from a higher to a lower place; to move downwards; to come or go down in any way, as by falling, flowing, walking, etc.; to plunge; to fall; to incline downward

The rain descended , and the floods came. Matthew vii. 25.

We will here descend to matters of later date. Fuller.

(poetic) To enter mentally; to retire.

[He] with holiest meditations fed, Into himself descended . .

(with on or upon) To make an attack, or incursion, as if from a vantage ground; to come suddenly and with violence.

And on the suitors let thy wrath descend . .

To come down to a lower, less fortunate, humbler, less virtuous, or worse, state or station; to lower or abase one's self

he descended from his high estate

To pass from the more general or important to the particular or less important matters to be considered.

To come down, as from a source, original, or stock; to be derived; to proceed by generation or by transmission; to fall or pass by inheritance.

the beggar may descend from a prince

a crown descends to the heir

(anatomy) To move toward the south, or to the southward.

(music) To fall in pitch; to pass from a higher to a lower tone.

To go down upon or along; to pass from a higher to a lower part of

they descended the river in boats; to descend a ladder

But never tears his cheek descended . .