descendant

Etymology

From Middle English dessendaunte, borrowed from Middle French, from Latin dēscendēns, present participle of descendere, from dē + scandere (“to climb, ascend”).

adj

1. Descending; going down.
   The elevator resumed its descendant trajectory.
   Eagle descendant, or descending. See DESCENDANT, and Pl. 22, fig. 6. Eagle descendant, displayed. See Pl. 22, fig. 7. Eagle displayed, recursant. See DISPLAYED RECURSANT, and Pl. 22, […] 1830, Thomas Robson (engraver.), The British herald, or Cabinet of armorial bearings of the nobility & gentry of Great Britain & Ireland, page 14
   Azure, surmounting a cloud argent, an American eagle descendant, wings endorsed proper, between his beak four lightning streaks, […] 1984, Charles A. Ravenstein, Air Force combat wings: lineage and honors histories 1947-1977, DIANE Publishing, page 259
2. Descending from a biological ancestor.
   Power in the kingdom is transferred in a descendant manner.
3. Proceeding from a figurative ancestor or source.

noun

1. One of the progeny of a specified person, at any distance of time or through any number of generations.
   The patriarch survived many descendants: five children, a dozen grandchildren, even a great grandchild.
2. (figurative) A thing that derives directly from a given precursor or source.
   This famous medieval manuscript has many descendants.
3. (biology) A later evolutionary type.
   Dogs evolved as descendants of early wolves.
4. (linguistics) A language that is descended from another.
   English and Scots are the descendants of Old English.
5. (linguistics) A word or form in one language that is descended from a counterpart in an ancestor language.
   Coordinate term: cognate
   The direct descendant of this form is the Slavic aorist: Sb.-Cr. nȍsī, dȍnosī. 1993, Jens Elmegård Rasmussen, “The Slavic i-verbs with an excursus on the Indo-European ē-verbs”, in Bela Brogyanyi, Reiner Lipp, editors, Comparative-Historical Linguistics, John Benjamins Publishing, page 479