descent

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act or an instance of descending.
• noun A way down.
• noun A downward incline or passage; a slope.
• noun Hereditary derivation; lineage.
• noun The fact or process of being derived or developing from a source.
• noun Law Transmission of property, especially real estate, to a hereditary heir by an intestate owner.
• noun A lowering or decline, as in status or level.
• noun A sudden visit or attack; an onslaught.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act of descending; the act of passing from a higher to a lower place by any form of motion.
• noun A downward slope or inclination; a declivity.
• noun A fall or decline from a higher to a lower state or station; declension; degradation.
• noun A sudden or hostile coming down upon a person, thing, or place; an incursion; an invasion; a sudden attack.
• noun 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.
• noun Genealogical extraction from an original or progenitor; lineage; pedigree; specifically, in biology, evolution; derivation: said of species, etc., as well as of individuals.
• noun A generation; a single degree in the scale of genealogy, traced from the common ancestor.
• noun Offspring; issue; descendants collectively.
• noun A rank; a step or degree.
• noun The lowest place.
• noun plural In fortification, a hole, vault, or hollow place made by undermining the ground.
• noun In music, a passing from a higher to a lower pitch.
• noun In logic, an inference from a proposition containing a higher term to a proposition containing a lower term.
• noun Debasement.
• noun Foray, raid.
• noun Generation, parentage, derivation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act of descending, or passing downward; change of place from higher to lower.
• noun Incursion; sudden attack; especially, hostile invasion from sea; -- often followed by upon or on.
• noun 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.
• noun Derivation, as from an ancestor; procedure by generation; lineage; birth; extraction.
• noun (Law) Transmission of an estate by inheritance, usually, but not necessarily, in the descending line; title to inherit an estate by reason of consanguinity.
• noun Inclination downward; a descending way; inclined or sloping surface; declivity; slope.
• noun That which is descended; descendants; issue.
• noun A step or remove downward in any scale of gradation; a degree in the scale of genealogy; a generation.
• noun rare Lowest place; extreme downward place.
• noun (Mus.) A passing from a higher to a lower tone.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun An instance of descending
• noun A way down.
• noun A sloping passage or incline.
• noun Lineage or hereditary derivation
• noun A drop to a lower status or condition.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a downward slope or bend
• noun the act of changing your location in a downward direction
• noun a movement downward
• noun properties attributable to your ancestry
• noun the kinship relation between an individual and the individual's progenitors
• noun the descendants of one individual