Search the Dictionary

Of or pertaining to the setting sun; falling; descending; western.

That which is produced; a child or children; a descendant or descendants, however remote from the stock. To the gods alone Our future offspring and our wives are known. Dryden.

tter. Original sin (Theol.), the first sin of Adam, as related to its consequences to his descendants of the human race; -- called also total depravity. See Calvinism.

A dialect descended from Sanskrit, and like that, a dead language, except when used as the sacred language of the Buddhist religion in Farther India, etc.

ve (Math.), a curve having the property that, when its plane is placed vertically, a body descending along it, by the force of gravity, will approach to, or recede from, a fixed point or center, by equal distances in equal times; -- called also a paracentric. -- Paracentric motton or velocity, the motion or velocity o…

either approximately or exactly in a straight line. Rankine. (b) (Mus.) The ascending or descending of two or more parts at fixed intervals, as thirds or sixths. -- Parallel rod (Locomotive Eng.), a metal rod that connects the crank pins of two or more driving wheels; -- called also couping rod, in distinction from t…

The holding or occupation of an inheritable estate which descends from the ancestor to two or more persons; coheirship.

A coheir, or one of two or more persons to whom an estate of inheritance descends jointly, and by whom it is held as one estate.

One of the adherents of the Zoroastrian or ancient Persian religion, descended from Persian refugees settled in India; a fire worshiper; a Gheber.

Special circumstance; minute detail; particular. "Even descending to particularities." Sir P. Sidney.

The father and ruler of a family; one who governs his family or descendants by paternal right; -- usually applied to heads of families in ancient history, especially in Biblical and Jewish history to those who lived before the time of Moses.

Showing condescending favor; assuming the manner of airs of a superior toward another. -- Pat"ron*i`zing*ly, adv. Thackeray.

An imaginary being, male or female, like an elf or fairy, represented as a descendant of fallen angels, excluded from paradise till penance is accomplished. Moore.

zalea nudiflora; also, the shrub itself; -- called also Pinxter blomachee by the New York descendants of the Dutch settlers.

The point where a declivity begins; hence, the declivity itself; a descending slope; the degree or rate of descent or slope; slant; as, a steep pitch in the road; the pitch of a roof.

little varied by inequalities; as, the plain of Jordan; the American plains, or prairies. Descending fro the mountain into playn. Chaucer. Him the Ammonite Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain. Milton.

ace and plenty." Shak. Houses of office stuffed with plentee. Chaucer. The teeming clouds Descend in gladsome plenty o'er the world. Thomson.

Weight; gravity; that which causes a body to descend; heaviness. "Weights of an extraordinary poise." Evelyn.

The part of an estate given to a child or heir, or descending to him by law, and distributed to him in the settlement of the estate; an inheritance. Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. Luke xv. 12.

progenitor; offspring to the furthest generation; the aggregate number of persons who are descended from an ancestor of a generation; descendants; -- contrasted with ancestry; as, the posterity of Abraham. If [the crown] should not stand in thy posterity. Shak.