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Dependent vs Descendant - What's the difference?

dependent | descendant |

As nouns the difference between dependent and descendant

is that dependent is while descendant is (literally) one who is the progeny of a specified person, at any distance of time or through any number of generations.

As an adjective descendant is

descending from a biological ancestor.

dependent

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Relying upon; depending upon.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Joseph Stiglitz)
    • , volume=188, issue=26, page=19, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Globalisation is about taxes too , passage=It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. […] It is the starving of the public sector which has been pivotal in America no longer being the land of opportunity – with a child's life prospects more dependent on the income and education of its parents than in other advanced countries.}}
  • Used in questions, negative sentences and after certain particles and prepositions.
  • (medicine) Affecting the lower part of the body, such as the legs while standing up, or the back while supine.
  • Hanging down.

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • (US) One who relies on another for support
    • With two children and an ailing mother, she had three dependents in all ... (In British English, this meaning is spelt dependant.)
  • (grammar) An element in phrase or clause structure that is not the head. Includes complements, modifiers and determiners.
  • (grammar) The aorist subjunctive or subjunctive perfective: a form of a verb not used independently but preceded by a particle to form the negative or a tense form. Found in Greek and in the Gaelic languages.

    • Synonyms

    * dependant

    Related terms

    * dependee * depender

    Related terms

    * depend * dependent clause * dependent variable * depending * independent * co-dependent ----

    descendant

    English

    Adjective

    (-)
  • descending from a biological ancestor.
  • proceeding from a figurative ancestor or source.

    • Usage notes

    The adjective may be spelled either with ant'' or ''ent'' as the final syllable (see descendent). The noun may be spelled only with ''ant .

    Alternative forms

    * descendent

    Antonyms

    * ascendant, ascendent, ascending

    Related terms

    * descendancy

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (literally) One who is the progeny of a specified person, at any distance of time or through any number of generations.
    • ''The patriarch survived many descendants : five children, a dozen grandchildren, even a great grandchild.
  • (figuratively) A thing that derives directly from a given precursor or source.
    • ''This famous medieval manuscript has many descendants .
  • (biology) A later evolutionary type.
    • ''Dogs evolved as descendants of early wolves.
  • (linguistics) A language that is descended from another.
    • English and Scots are the descendants of Old English.
  • (linguistics) A word or form in one language that is descended from a counterpart in an ancestor language.
  • * 1993 , Jens Elmegård Rasmussen, “The Slavic i''-verbs with an excursus on the Indo-European ''?''-verbs”, in Bela Brogyanyi and Reiner Lipp (editors), ''Comparative-Historical Linguistics , John Benjamins Publishing, ISBN 978-90-272-3598-5, page 479:
    • The direct descendant of this form is the Slavic aorist: Sb.-Cr. n?s?'', ''d?nos? .

    Usage notes

    The adjective may be spelled either with ant'' or ''ent'' as the final syllable (see descendent). The noun may be spelled only with ''ant .

    Synonyms

    * * *

    Antonyms

    * ascendant * ancestor * forebear

    Derived terms

    * direct descendant * indirect descendant

    See also

    * offspring * offshoot * progeny ----