descend
part of speech
verb (descend, descends, descended, descending)
meaning for a pupil
1) To descend is to go or come down, or to move downwards. tree →
2) To be descended from someone means to come from them in your family history (to be their great-great-grandchild, and so on). tree →
3) To descend on a place means to arrive there suddenly in large numbers. tree →
sense in the lessons
In the Tanakh and Jewish tradition: In these verses it is used of God coming down in a cloud, and of angels going down Jacob's ladder. Interpretation: Tradition does not take God's "descending" literally, since God has no body. It reads it as God drawing near to people, as at Sinai and the Tent of Meeting. In the primary lessons: In maths, descending order means from the biggest to the smallest (9, 7, 4, 2). In science and geography, planes descend to land and climbers descend a mountain. In history and family trees, people are descended from their ancestors. Phrases: descend the stairs, descending order, be descended from, descend on.
examples
- And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. (Torah EXO.34.5, JPS 1917) tree →
- And it came to pass, when Moses entered into the Tent, the pillar of cloud descended, and stood at the door of the Tent; and the LORD spoke with Moses. (Torah EXO.33.9, JPS 1917) tree →
- And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (Torah GEN.28.12, JPS 1917) tree →
- Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended? (Writings PRO.30.4, JPS 1917) tree →
- For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away; his wealth shall not descend after him. (Writings PSA.49.18, JPS 1917) tree →
- And it shall hail, in the downfall of the forest; but the city shall descend into the valley. (Prophets ISA.32.19, JPS 1917) tree →
- The plane began to descend towards the airport. tree →
- We carefully descended the steep hill. tree →
- Put these numbers in descending order: 3, 8, 5. tree →
- She is descended from a family of sailors. tree →
- Night descended on the town. tree →
- Hundreds of fans descended on the stadium. tree →
- The divers descended to the bottom of the lake. tree →
- She then descended from the chariot and made her reverence. tree →
note
Regular verb: descended, descending. Noun: descent (going down) and descendant (a person in your family who comes after you). Spelling: «sc» in the middle: de-SCEND. Opposite: ascend. Maths trap: ascending order is smallest to biggest; descending is biggest to smallest.
In the corpora
- And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.
- And it shall hail, in the downfall of the forest; but the city shall descend into the valley.
- For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away; his wealth shall not descend after him.
- Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended?
- Birds are living dinosaurs, descended from small feathered meat-eating dinosaurs, and there are about 11,000 kinds of birds alive today.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «descend» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.