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o voice; the treble. Grove. Twenty doctors expound one text twenty ways, as children make descant upon plain song. Tyndale. She [the nightingale] all night long her amorous descant sung. Milton.

One who descants.

A genus including spiderwort and Wandering Jew.

See Descant, n.

To enlarge in discourse or writing; to be copious in argument or discussion; to descant. He expatiated on the inconveniences of trade. Addison.

odic movement of one or more parts or voices in the harmony; as, figurate counterpoint or descant. Figurate counterpoint or descant (Mus.), that which is not simple, or in which the parts do not move together tone for tone, but in which freer movement of one or more parts mingles passing discords with the harmony; -- c…

they wrote for a public familiar with painted form. J. A. Symonds. Figurative counterpointdescant. See under Figurate. -- Fig"ur*a*tive*ly, adv. -- Fig"ur*a*tive*ness, n.

Free and florid; as, a figured descant. See Figurate, 3.

The tune on which descants are raised; the plain song. Moore (Encyc.). On that ground I'll build a holy descant. Shak.

An American endogenous plant (Tradescantia Virginica), with long linear leaves and ephemeral blue flowers. The name is sometimes extended to other species of the same genus.

puscles of the blood. -- Wandering Jew (Bot.), any one of several creeping species of Tradescantia, which have alternate, pointed leaves, and a soft, herbaceous stem which roots freely at the joints. They are commonly cultivated in hanging baskets, window boxes, etc. -- Wandering kidney (Med.), a morbid condition in…