descended
Americanadjective
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having a specified ancestry or ethnic origin.
She was the only daughter of a wealthy baron and his royally descended wife.
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having gone from a higher place or position to a lower one.
The cooled and descended air then travels along the earth’s surface toward the equator to replace air rising from the equatorial zone.
He was hailed as some descended godhead on earth—an avatar.
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inherited or transmitted, as through succeeding generations of a family.
Early mammals generally possessed claws, and all existing cat species carry that descended trait.
-
derived from something in the remote past, especially through continuous transmission.
Traditional religions tend to focus on descended practice and ritual rather than on doctrine taught by a religious institution.
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of descended
First recorded in 1560–70; descend ( def. ) + -ed 2 ( def. ) for the adjective senses; descend ( def. ) + -ed 1 ( def. ) for the verb sense
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Their results indicate that most of Shimao's inhabitants descended from local people who had lived in the region about 1,000 years earlier.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026
Domenico Pianese, the Secretary-General of the police union, criticised Lepore's decision to call for a demonstration that later descended into chaos.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
“I had descended into the strange subterranean structures of aging, almost as a way to avoid the contemporary world … ,” she writes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
The future of the imperial household -- mythically descended from the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu -- depends currently on Prince Hisahito, the 19-year-old nephew of Emperor Naruhito, 66.
From Barron's ● Jul. 17, 2026
Beneath it was a ladder that descended into a deep, dark hole.
From "The Wild Robot Escapes" by Peter Brown
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
