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Descended vs Descendant - What's the difference?

descended | descendant |

As a verb descended

is (descend).

As an adjective descendant is

descending from a biological ancestor.

As a noun descendant is

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

descended

English

Verb

(head)
  • (descend)
  • ----

    descend

    English

    (Webster 1913)

    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 . .

    Synonyms

    * go down

    Antonyms

    * ascend * go up

    Derived terms

    * descender

    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

    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 ----