descendant

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French descendant,^[2][3][4][5] the present participle of descendre (“to go down”),^[3][5][6] and partly borrowed from Latin dēscendēns, the present participle of dēscendō.^[2][4] In Anglo-Norman the noun meant a person going down a hill from the early 12th century,^[2] and in Old French a person descended from an ancestor from about 1260;^[2] Etymonline dates the French word to the 13th century.^[3] The Middle English adjective appears as descendaunt and dessendaunte in heraldry.^[7][4] The word comes from the same verb as descend.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

As an adjective, coming down from an ancestor or ancestral line: about 1429, in the Mirour of Mans Saluacioune.^[2] Etymonline dates the adjective, "extending downward", to the mid-15th century,^[3] and in a heraldic book of arms of about 1460 it describes stalks hanging down.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The adjective was used in astrology from before 1522, in Gavin Douglas's translation of Virgil, for a planet sinking below the horizon.^[2] The noun, a person descended from an ancestor, followed in 1569,^[2] or about 1600 in Etymonline and Merriam-Webster.^[3][4] By 1598 it was used of anything that developed from an earlier source,^[2] and since 1735 of animals, plants and breeds.^[2] In astrology the noun named the point of the western horizon where the ecliptic sets (1593),^[2] and Etymonline dates this sense to the 1680s.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined it as offspring "at whatever distance".^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1429 – adjective, descending from an ancestor.^[2]
• before 1522 – adjective, sinking below the horizon, in astrology.^[2]
• 1569 – noun, a person descended from an ancestor.^[2]
• 1593 – noun, the setting point of the ecliptic, in astrology.^[2]
• 1598 – noun, something developed from an earlier source.^[2]
• 1676 – noun, a letter with a descender, in printing (obsolete).^[2]
• 1735 – noun, an animal or plant descended from another.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person descended from a given ancestor or family: She is a descendant of Irish emigrants.^[4][9]
2. An animal, plant or breed descended from earlier forms.^[4][9][2]
3. Something that develops from an earlier form or prototype: Modern tablets are descendants of the slate.^[4][9]
4. (astrology) The point of the ecliptic on the western horizon, opposite the ascendant.^[9][2]

Adjective

1. Descending from an ancestor or source: the descendant line.^[4][2]
2. Moving downward; descending.^[4][5]

Related words

• descend
• descent
• descendent
• descender
• ascendant
• dependant

Usage notes

Usage guides since the mid-18th century have preferred descendent for the adjective and descendant for the noun;^[2] Johnson remarked that the noun takes its ending from French and the adjective from Latin.^[2] In practice descendant prevails in both uses,^[3][2] and Etymonline finds it about five times as common as descendent in books printed since 1900.^[3] Compare dependant.^[3]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins