What does descent mean?
Word: Descent
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Descent means a movement downwards, such as a plane coming in to land or climbers coming down a mountain. It can also mean the family or country your ancestors came from.
Synonyms: fall, drop, ancestry
Antonyms: ascent, climb, rise
Sounds like: dissent (disagreement with an idea or decision)
How do you spell descent?
Syllables: de - scent
Tricky part: The middle letters are sc, as in scene and science. Students often write decent (which means good) or dissent (which means disagreement) by mistake.
Watch out for: desent, decsent, discent
Memory tip: Ascent and descent are a matching pair of opposites, one going up and one coming down, and both keep a c tucked in straight after the s.
Descent in a sentence
Example 1: The plane began its descent over the Arabian Sea.
Example 2: Our descent from the fort took less time than the climb.
Example 3: Priya is of Tamil descent, though she grew up in London.
Fun Fact
Descent and ascent share a Latin root, scandere, to climb; adding de turned climbing up into climbing down.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Twins
Read the sentences and choose the correct option:
1. The lift's descend to the ground floor took only a few seconds. 2. The guide warned us that the descent of the old stone steps would be slippery after the rain.
a) only 2
b) neither
c) both
d) only 1
Show answer
a) only 2. Sentence 1 needs the noun descent; descend is the action word, as in 'the lift began to descend'.
Sound Check
Which word does not rhyme with descent?
a) repent
b) absent
c) cement
d) consent
Show answer
b) absent. Absent is stressed on its first part, AB-sent; consent, cement and repent put the weight on 'sent', just as descent does.
Word Champ
Read the statements and choose the correct option:
1. Descent can mean the family or country your ancestors came from. 2. A crescent is the round shape of a full moon. 3. An adolescent is a young person who is growing into an adult.
a) both 2 and 3 are true
b) only 1 is true
c) all three are true
d) both 1 and 3 are true
Show answer
d) both 1 and 3 are true. A crescent is the thin, curved shape of the moon when only a sliver shows, so statement 2 is the false one.
Word Tally
How many words are misspelt in the sentence?
The trekkers rested for ten minutes before beginning the steep descent to the vally below.
a) 3
b) 2
c) 1
d) 0
Show answer
c) 1. Only valley is misspelt here: it ends in ey; beginning keeps its double n.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. On a steep descent, a cyclist usually ___.
a) waits at the top of the hill
b) pedals hard to climb higher
c) rolls downhill and brakes gently
d) stops to mend a flat tyre
Show answer
c) rolls downhill and brakes gently
2. Which of these is NOT a descent?
a) sliding down a slope
b) climbing up a ladder
c) a lift going down
d) a bird gliding to the ground
Show answer
b) climbing up a ladder
