descent

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or an instance of descending.
2. n. A way down.
3. n. A downward incline or passage; a slope.
4. n. Hereditary derivation; lineage: a person of African descent.
5. n. One generation of a specific lineage.
6. n. The fact or process of coming down or being derived from a source: a paper tracing the descent of the novel from old picaresque tales.
7. n. Development in form or structure during transmission from an original source.
8. n. Law Transference of property by inheritance.
9. n. A lowering or decline, as in status or level: Her career went into a rapid descent after the charges of misconduct.
10. n. A sudden visit or attack; an onslaught.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of descending; the act of passing from a higher to a lower place by any form of motion.
2. n. A downward slope or inclination; a declivity.
3. n. A fall or decline from a higher to a lower state or station; declension; degradation.
4. n. A sudden or hostile coming down upon a person, thing, or place; an incursion; an invasion; a sudden attack.
5. n. In law, the passing of real property to the heir or heirs of one who dies without disposing of it by will; transmission by succession or inheritance; the hereditary devolution of real property either to a single heir at law (common in England) or to the nearest relatives in the same degree, whether in a descending, ascending, or collateral line. See heir.
6. n. Genealogical extraction from an original or progenitor; lineage; pedigree; specifically, in biology, evolution; derivation: said of species, etc., as well as of individuals.
7. n. A generation; a single degree in the scale of genealogy, traced from the common ancestor.
8. n. Offspring; issue; descendants collectively.
9. n. A rank; a step or degree.
10. n. The lowest place.
11. n. plural In fortification, a hole, vault, or hollow place made by undermining the ground.
12. n. In music, a passing from a higher to a lower pitch.
13. n. In logic, an inference from a proposition containing a higher term to a proposition containing a lower term. This is also called arguitive descent, in opposition to divisive descent, which is a proposition dividing a genus into its species.
14. n. Debasement.
15. n. Foray, raid.
16. n. Generation, parentage, derivation.

Wiktionary

1. n. An instance of descending
2. n. A way down.
3. n. A sloping passage or incline.
4. n. Lineage or hereditary derivation
5. n. A drop to a lower status or condition.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of descending, or passing downward; change of place from higher to lower.
2. n. Incursion; sudden attack; especially, hostile invasion from sea; -- often followed by upon or on.
3. n. Progress downward, as in station, virtue, as in station, virtue, and the like, from a higher to a lower state, from a higher to a lower state, from the more to the less important, from the better to the worse, etc.
4. n. Derivation, as from an ancestor; procedure by generation; lineage; birth; extraction.
5. n. (Law) Transmission of an estate by inheritance, usually, but not necessarily, in the descending line; title to inherit an estate by reason of consanguinity.
6. n. Inclination downward; a descending way; inclined or sloping surface; declivity; slope.
7. n. That which is descended; descendants; issue.
8. n. A step or remove downward in any scale of gradation; a degree in the scale of genealogy; a generation.
9. n. rare Lowest place; extreme downward place.
10. n. (Mus.) A passing from a higher to a lower tone.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a downward slope or bend
2. n. the act of changing your location in a downward direction
3. n. a movement downward
4. n. properties attributable to your ancestry
5. n. the kinship relation between an individual and the individual's progenitors
6. n. the descendants of one individual