descended

[dih-sen-did]

adjective

1. having a specified ancestry or ethnic origin.

   She was the only daughter of a wealthy baron and his royally descended wife.

2. 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.

3. inherited or transmitted, as through succeeding generations of a family.

   Early mammals generally possessed claws, and all existing cat species carry that descended trait.

4. 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

1. the simple past tense and past participle of descend.

Other Word Forms

• undescended adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of descended¹

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

My palm pattern, my powers, this akrafena—it all comes from the fact that I’m descended from Grandma, one of Asase’s blessed.

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Federal immigration agents had descended on Panchos, a family-owned institution that sponsored girls’ softball teams, hosted Rotary Club meetings, and drew locals for “Ladies Night” and Ohio State football watch parties.

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They descended stairs as if from the heavens.

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Frantic, he helped his parents hoist his six younger siblings over a backyard fence as fireballs of ignited crude descended around their home, just across the street.

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“An iron curtain has descended across the Continent,” declared Winston Churchill, Britain’s prime minister during World War II, while visiting America in 1946.

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Related Words

• cascade 
• collapse 
• crash 
• dip 
• disembark 
• dive 
• go down 
• penetrate 
• plummet 
• plunge 
• settle 
• sink 
• slide 
• slip 
• stumble 
• subside 
• swoop 
• trickle 
• tumble