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To come down, as from a source, original, or stock; to be derived; to proceed by generation or by transmission; to fall or pass by inheritance; as, the beggar may descend from a prince; a crown descends to the heir.

Descending; falling; proceeding from an ancestor or source. More than mortal grace Speaks thee descendent of ethereal race. Pope.

To cease to proceed or act; to stop; to forbear; -- often with from. Never desisting to do evil. E. Hall. To desist from his bad practice. Massinger. Desist (thou art discern'd, And toil'st in vain). Milton.

Proceeding from, or suggested by, despair; without regard to danger or safety; reckless; furious; as, a desperate effort. "Desperate expedients." Macaulay.

To restrain from proceeding; to stay or stop; to delay; as, we were detained by an accident. Let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee. Judges xiii. 15.

sion and subdivision, as of a stem of a plant or a vein of the body, into two parts as it proceeds from its origin; successive bifurcation.

wing, disclaiming, or disowning; rejection and denial. An earnest disavowal of fear often proceeds from fear. Richardson.

d discriminate mental vision; acuteness; sagacity; insight; as, the errors of youth often proceed from the want of discernment.

That technical interruption of the proceedings in pleading in an action, which follows where a defendant does not answer the whole of the plaintiff's declaration, and the plaintiff omits to take judgment for the part unanswered. Wharton's Law Dict. Burrill.

Reasoning; proceeding from one ground to another, as in reasoning; argumentative. Reason is her being, Discursive or intuitive. Milton. -- Dis*cur"sive*ly, adv. -- Dis*cur"sive*ness, n.

e or search thoroughly; to exhaust a remedy against, as against a principal debtor before proceeding against the surety. Burrill.

lared . . . to have been disgusted at failing. J. H. Newman. Alarmed and disgusted by the proceedings of the convention. Macaulay.

Not dictated by passion; not proceeding from temper or bias; impartial; as, dispassionate proceedings; a dispassionate view.

The state of being dissatisfied, unsatisfied, or discontented; uneasiness proceeding from the want of gratification, or from disappointed wishes and expectations. The ambitious man has little happiness, but is subject to much uneasiness and dissatisfaction. Addison.

of a passion or appetite; mental derangement; bad temper; ill humor. [Obs.] Little faults proceeding on distemper. Shak. Some frenzy distemper had got into his head. Bunyan.

The act or proceeding of seizing personal property by distress. Abbott.

te (as from a given direction); -- opposed to converge; as, rays of light diverge as they proceed from the sun.

Proceeding from God; as, divine judgments. "Divine protection." Bacon.

An abridged entry of a judgment or proceeding in an action, or register or such entries; a book of original, kept by clerks of courts, containing a formal list of the names of parties, and minutes of the proceedings, in each case in court.

d Richard Roe. Hence, a fictitious name for a party, real or fictitious, to any action or proceeding.