descent
n. C / Un. the act of moving downward or a slope that goes down. It can also describe a person's family background or where their ancestors came from.
n. the act or process of moving from a higher to a lower level; also refers to a person's lineage or ancestral origin.
The plane began its final descent toward the airport.
The hikers found the descent from the mountain peak much harder on their knees than the climb up.
The historical documents provided clear evidence of her royal descent, tracing her family tree back to the sixteenth-century monarchs of Western Europe.
From Middle English and Anglo-Norman descente, from Anglo-Norman descendre (“to descend”); see descend. Compare ascent, ascend. Doublet of desant.
Uncountable when referring to ancestry or lineage; countable when referring to a specific physical movement downward.