King James Bible Dictionary

DESCENT, noun

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.