What does descend mean?
Word: Descend
Part of Speech: Verb
Meaning: Descend means to go or come down from a higher place to a lower one, such as down a staircase, a hill or from the sky.
Synonyms: go down, come down, drop, lower
Antonyms: climb, rise
How do you spell descend?
Syllables: de - scend
Tricky part: The s and c sit side by side in the middle, but you hear only one s sound, so the s or the c often goes missing.
Watch out for: desend, decend, dessend
Memory tip: A scout climbing down a hill helps here: the sc of scout sits in the middle of descend.
Descend in a sentence
Example 1: We had to descend two hundred steps to reach the river bank.
Example 2: The lift will descend to the ground floor in a moment.
Example 3: As evening came, a thick fog began to descend over the hills.
Fun Fact
Descend reached English through French about 700 years ago, from a Latin verb meaning to climb down.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Connection
Choose the antonym of the word:
descend
a) ascend
b) sink
c) tumble
d) plunge
Show answer
a) ascend. To ascend is to go up, the exact opposite of going down.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
The hot-air balloon began to discend slowly over the green fields.
a) fields
b) slowly
c) discend
d) balloon
Show answer
c) discend. The first vowel is an e, so the word begins de, as decide does.
Spell-o-Spell
Choose the correctly spelt word:
a) staircaise
b) descend
c) balconny
d) escalater
Show answer
b) descend. A staircase has no i in it, an escalator ends in or, and a balcony needs only one n.
Mingle-Mangle
Form a meaningful word from the jumbled letters:
nedecds
a) seconds
b) descend
c) decides
d) descent
Show answer
b) descend. Descent needs a t, seconds an o and decides an i, so the seven letters spell descend.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Who or what is descending here?
a) a girl skipping along a path
b) a diver sinking to the seabed
c) a boy climbing up a tree
d) a kite rising on the wind
Show answer
b) a diver sinking to the seabed
2. Which word looks a lot like descend but means 'proper and good enough'?
a) dissent
b) distant
c) descent
d) decent
Show answer
d) decent
