descend from

phrasal verb

descended from; descending from; descends from
: to have (something or someone in the past) as an origin or source
Recent evidence supports the theory that birds descended from dinosaurs.
The plants descend from a common ancestor.
They claim to be descended from a noble British family.

Examples of descend from in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web All the males in the study were descended from a few adult men buried with rich grave goods, assumed to be the founders of the community. Byandrew Curry, science.org, 24 Apr. 2024 While it is descended from hybrids, H. elevatus is also a distinct butterfly species and has its own individual traits. Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 17 Apr. 2024 Already 220 minutes long, the broadcast window with commercials has ballooned to four hours and 44 minutes, spilling out of primetime before Moses can descend from Mount Sinai with the you-know-what. Brian Lowry, CNN, 27 Mar. 2024 Swift and Dickinson both descend from a 17th century English immigrant (Swift’s 9th great-grandfather and Dickinson’s 6th great-grandfather who was an early settler of Windsor, Connecticut). Emily Tannenbaum, Glamour, 4 Mar. 2024 Each fragment of your DNA descends from a random line up your family tree – father’s mother’s mother’s father and so on – at each generation in the past, selecting at random one of two parents. Discover Magazine, 8 Apr. 2024 Prior to this record, Tiller was toiling away on his Slum Tiller mixtape series, and much of Bryson Tiller descends from that work. Kyle Denis, Billboard, 8 Apr. 2024 Cardinale, a Goldman Sachs veteran famous in American sports, entertainment, and media, had descended from the boardroom to experience firsthand what kind of party one of Italian soccer’s most beloved teams would put on the day of its first championship in 11 years. Paolo Confino, Fortune, 30 Mar. 2024 These past decisions have culminated in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which can be seen as the Supreme Court clearing the way to eliminate the last legal tools to try to level the playing field for people who descend from slavery. Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Times, 13 Mar. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'descend from.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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Cite this Entry

“Descend from.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/descend%20from. Accessed 28 Apr. 2024.

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