Wordwyrt

descendant

/dɪˈsendənt/dih-SEN-duhnt
/dɪˈsɛndənt/dih-SEN-duhnt

Meaningone who descends

Common meaning: a person born in a later generation of a family

‘down, away, off’ + ‘to climb’ → descendant

Journey through time

  1. Proto-Indo-European*skand-‘spring, spring up, climb’source
  2. Latinscandō, scānsum‘to climb’
  3. Old Frenchdescendresource
  4. Middle Englishdescendensource
  5. Englishdescend‘to go down’
  6. Englishformed in English from descenddescendant‘a person born in a later generation of a family’ · today

Sources & notes

Meaning: “Meaning” is the sense that emerges from the word’s roots; “Common meaning” is today’s everyday sense. Both written by us.

Pronunciation

  • UK IPA: converted from the US form by rule (unchecked). Respelling: generated.
  • No UK recording; the speaker uses your device’s en-GB voice.
  • US IPA: CMUdict (BSD-2), converted to IPA by rule. Respelling: generated.
  • No US recording; the speaker uses your device’s en-US voice.

Origin: Formed in English from descend + -ant.

Dictionary: Skeat (1898), DESCEND, p.162 · scan

Roots

Building blocks are an automatic split · open in app