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3 VERB If a large group of people arrive to see you, especially if their visit is unexpected or causes you a lot of work, you can say that they have descended on you. □ [V + on/upon ] 3,000 city officials descended on Capitol Hill to lobby for more money.

4 VERB When night, dusk, or darkness descends , it starts to get dark. [LITERARY ] □ [V ] Darkness has now descended and the moon and stars shine hazily in the clear sky.

5 VERB If you say that someone descends to behaviour which you consider unacceptable, you are expressing your disapproval of the fact that they do it. [DISAPPROVAL ] □ [V + to ] We're not going to descend to such methods.

6 VERB When you want to emphasize that the situation that someone is entering is very bad, you can say that they are descending into that situation. [EMPHASIS ] □ [V + into ] He was ultimately overthrown and the country descended into chaos.

de|scend|ant /d I se ndənt/ (descendants )

1 N‑COUNT [usu pl, usu with poss] Someone's descendants are the people in later generations who are related to them. □ [+ of ] They are descendants of the original English and Scottish settlers.

2 N‑COUNT Something modern which developed from an older thing can be called a descendant of it. □ [+ of ] His design was a descendant of a 1956 device.

de|scend|ed /d I se nd I d/

1 ADJ A person who is descended from someone who lived a long time ago is directly related to them. □ [+ from ] She told us she was descended from some Scottish Lord.

2 ADJ An animal that is descended from another sort of animal has developed from the original sort.

de|scend|ing /d I se nd I ŋ/ ADJ [ADJ n] When a group of things is listed or arranged in descending order , each thing is smaller or less important than the thing before it. □  All the other ingredients, including water, have to be listed in descending order by weight.

de|scent /d I se nt/ (descents )

1 N‑VAR A descent is a movement from a higher to a lower level or position. □ [+ into ] …the crash of an Airbus A300 on its descent into Kathmandu airport.

2 N‑COUNT A descent is a surface that slopes downwards, for example the side of a steep hill. □  On the descents, cyclists spin past cars, freewheeling downhill at tremendous speed.

3 N‑SING When you want to emphasize that a situation becomes very bad, you can talk about someone's or something's descent into that situation. [EMPHASIS ] □ [+ from/to ] …his swift descent from respected academic to struggling small businessman.

4 N‑UNCOUNT [usu of adj N ] You use descent to talk about a person's family background, for example their nationality or social status. [FORMAL ] □  All the contributors were of African descent.

de|scribe ◆◆◆ /d I skra I b/ (describes , describing , described )

1 VERB If you describe a person, object, event, or situation, you say what they are like or what happened. □ [V wh] We asked her to describe what kind of things she did in her spare time. □ [V n] She read a poem by Carver which describes their life together. □ [V v-ing] Just before his death he described seeing their son in a beautiful garden.

2 VERB If a person describes someone or something as a particular thing, he or she believes that they are that thing and says so. □ [V n + as ] He described it as an extraordinarily tangled and complicated tale. □  Even his closest allies describe him as forceful, aggressive and determined. □ [V n + as ] He described the meeting as marking a new stage in the peace process. SYNONYMS describe VERB 1