1.The act of descending, or passing downward; change of place from higher to lower.
2.Incursion; sudden attack; especially, hostile invasion from sea; often followed by upon or on; as, to make a descent upon the enemy. "The United Provinces... ordered public prayer to God, when they feared that the French and English fleets would make a descent upon their coasts."
3.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.Derivation, as from an ancestor; procedure by generation; lineage; birth; extraction.
5.(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.Inclination downward; a descending way; inclined or sloping surface; declivity; slope; as, a steep descent.
7.That which is descended; descendants; issue. "If care of our descent perplex us most, Which must be born to certain woe."
8.A step or remove downward in any scale of gradation; a degree in the scale of genealogy; a generation. "No man living is a thousand descents removed from Adam himself."
9.Lowest place; extreme downward place. (R.) "And from the extremest upward of thy head, To the descent and dust below thy foot."
10.(Mus.) A passing from a higher to a lower tone.
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