Descent may refer to:

As a noun

Genealogy and inheritance

Common descent Common descent is a concept in evolutionary biology applicable when one species is the ancestor of two or more species later in time. All living beings are in fact descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as the last universal comm ...

, concept in evolutionary biology *

Kinship In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says th ...

, one of the major concepts of cultural anthropology **

Pedigree chart A pedigree chart is a diagram that shows the occurrence and appearance of phenotypes of a particular gene or organism and its ancestors from one generation to the next, most commonly humans, show dogs, and race horses. Definition The word pedigr ...

family tree A family tree, also called a genealogy or a pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. More detailed family trees, used in medicine and social work, are known as genograms. Representations o ...

Ancestry An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder or a forebear, is a parent or ( recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from wh ...

Lineal descendant A lineal descendant, in legal usage, is a blood relative in the direct line of descent – the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. of a person. In a legal procedure sense, lineal descent refers to the acquisition of estate by i ...

** Heritage **

Royal descent A royal descent is a genealogical line of descent from a past or present monarch. Both geneticists and genealogists have attempted to estimate the percentage of living people with royal descent. From a genetic perspective, the number of un ...

- lineal descent from a monarch *

Phylogenetics In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups ...

Tree diagram (disambiguation) Tree diagram may refer to: * Tree structure, a way of representing the hierarchical nature of a structure in a graphical form Mathematics and logic * Tree diagram (probability theory), a diagram to represent a probability space in probability t ...

Inheritance Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offici ...

(law and property)

Mathematics

* Infinite descent, a method going back to Fermat to solve Diophantine equations * Descent (mathematics), an idea extending the notion of "gluing" in topology * Hadamard's method of descent, a technique for solving partial differential equations *

Gradient descent In mathematics, gradient descent (also often called steepest descent) is a first-order iterative optimization algorithm for finding a local minimum of a differentiable function. The idea is to take repeated steps in the opposite direction of ...

, a first-order optimization algorithm going back to Newton * Descents in permutations, a classical

permutation In mathematics, a permutation of a set is, loosely speaking, an arrangement of its members into a sequence or linear order, or if the set is already ordered, a rearrangement of its elements. The word "permutation" also refers to the act or p ...

statistic in combinatorics

Other uses

* Descent (aeronautics), the decrease of an aircraft in altitude during flight *

Descent (font) A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...

, the distance that a typeface descends below the baseline in typography *

Katabasis A katabasis or catabasis ( grc, κατάβασις, from "down" and "go") is a journey to the underworld. Its original sense is usually associated with Greek mythology and Classical mythology more broadly, where the protagonist visits the Gree ...

As a proper name

Film

* '' The Descent'', a 2005 horror film ** '' The Descent Part 2'', the 2009 sequel to the 2005 film * ''Descent'' (2007 film), a thriller film starring Rosario Dawson * ''Descent'' (2017 film), a Nigerian film

Gaming

* ''Descent'' (video game), first in a series from Interplay Entertainment and Parallax Software ** ''

Descent II ''Descent II'' is a 1996 first-person shooter game developed by Parallax Software and first published for DOS by Interplay Productions. For the PlayStation, it is known as ''Descent Maximum''. It is the second installment in the ''Descent ...

'', sequel to ''Descent'' ** ''

Descent 3 ''Descent 3'' (stylized as ''Descent³'') is a first-person shooter video game developed by Outrage Entertainment and published by Interplay Entertainment. It was originally released for Microsoft Windows in North America on June 17, 1999. ''Des ...

'', sequel to ''Descent II'' * '' Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War'', a 1998 space combat simulation computer game * '' Descent: Journeys in the Dark'', a 2005 board game by Fantasy Flight Games * '' Dragon Age: Inquisition – The Descent'', a 2015 downloadable content pack for ''Dragon Age: Inquisition''

Literature

* '' Descent: An Irresistible Tragicomedy of Everyday Life'', a 2004 novel by Sabrina Broadbent * ''The Descent'' (novel), by Jeff Long * ''Descent'' (magazine), a magazine about caving * ''Descent'' (journal), a genealogy journal published by the Society of Australian Genealogists

Music

* ''Descent'', an album by the band This Burning Effigy * "Descent" (song), a song by Fear Factory from ''Obsolete'' * "Descent", a song by Godflesh from '' Us and Them'' * "Descent", a song by Knut from '' Bastardiser'' * "Descent", a song by Neurosis from '' Times of Grace'' * "A Descent", a song by Born of Osiris from '' A Higher Place'' * "The Descent", a song by Polaris from '' The Death of Me''

Television

* "Descent" (''Star Trek: The Next Generation''), a two-part 1993 episode of ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' * "Descent" (''The Outer Limits''), a 1999 episode of ''The Outer Limits'' * "Descent" (''Stargate SG-1''), a 2002 episode of ''Stargate SG-1'' * "The Descent" (''The Vampire Diaries''), a 2011 episode of ''The Vampire Diaries'' * "Descent", a 2013 episode of '' NCIS: Los Angeles''