Descent

How to spell descent

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce descent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does descent mean?

1. nounThe action of moving or sloping downward from a higher position.
2. nounA person's family origins or the line of ancestors they come from.

Descent in a sentence

• The plane began its descent toward the runway.

• She traced her descent back to a small village in Italy.

• The steep descent down the mountain path tired the hikers.

• The form asked applicants to record their national descent.

Where does descent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Descent comes from the Latin verb descendere, which literally meant 'to climb down', built from de- 'down' and scandere 'to climb'. English took it through Old French descente in the 1300s, first for the physical act of going downward and soon afterwards for the line of ancestors a person comes 'down' from. The same scandere root climbs through several relatives, including 'ascend', 'scale' and 'scan', all of which share the idea of moving along steps or a slope. The spelling keeps the 'sc' cluster from scandere, which is the very thing that makes descent so easy to confuse with its unrelated homophone 'dissent', meaning disagreement. Holding on to the 'des-' beginning, the mental picture of stepping down a staircase, is the reliable way to keep the two apart in writing.

How the word is built

• de- (down)
• scent (from Latin scandere: to climb)
• -ent (noun ending)

Words that sound like descent

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• dissent: Strong disagreement with a prevailing opinion, policy, or official decision.