All 33 Uses of
descend
in
Atlas Shrugged
- The place was entered by way of narrow steps that led down, as if descending deep under the ground.†
Chpt 1.3 (definition 2)
- The great chain stopped over a car, descended, jerked in a brief spasm and left the rails in the car.†
Chpt 1.4 (definition 2)
- The sun was descending to the peaks in the west.†
Chpt 1.8 (definition 2)
- Then the door of the cab was flung open, she knew that she had to be first to descend, and she stepped to the edge.†
Chpt 1.8 (definition 2)
- He wished them good night and they heard his steps descending the stairs.†
Chpt 1.8 (definition 2)
- Angular tiers descended below, with shadows repeating the steel tracery of derricks, criss-crossing sharp, black lines on patches of glowing rock.†
Chpt 1.8 (definition 2)
- She could not descend to an existence where her brain would explode under the pressure of forcing itself not to outdistance incompetence.†
Chpt 1.10 (definition 2)
- Its glass walls spread a coat of polish over the view of rocks and pines descending in broken ledges to the sunset.†
Chpt 1.10 (definition 2)
- The rush to convert to coal had descended upon his shoulders like a weight of gold: he had kept his plant working around the clock, running a race with next winter's blizzards, casting parts for coal-burning stoves and furnaces.
Chpt 2.1 (definition 1)descended = come
- Standing on the Terminal platform, at a point halfway down the length of the train, Lillian Rearden watched the passengers descending from the Comet.†
Chpt 2.5 (definition 2)
- There was a clutter of sidings, freight cars, cranes and steam shovels around him, descending from the main track down the slope of a ravine where men were grading the roadbed of the new cutoff.†
Chpt 2.6 (definition 2)
- He waited until she had descended to the ground and the man with the notes had departed; then he approached her and said coldly: "Miss Taggart?†
Chpt 2.6 (definition 2)
- …flag of the idea which I am fighting: the idea that need is a sacred idol requiring human sacrifices-that the need of some men is the knife of a guillotine hanging over others-that all of us must live with our work, our hopes, our plans, our efforts at the mercy of the moment when that knife will descend upon us-and that the extent of our ability is the extent of our danger, so that success will bring our heads down on the block, while failure will give us the right to pull the cord.
Chpt 2.7 (definition 2) *descend = move downward
- He had to be here, in this office, it was required of him, he had to sit idly and wait-wait for the unknown to descend upon him and to determine his actions-and the terror was both of who would come for him and of the fact that nobody came, nobody to tell him what to do.
Chpt 2.8 (definition 1)descend = come
- Clouds had wrapped the sky and had descended as fog to wrap the streets below, as if the sky were engulfing the city.†
Chpt 2.9 (definition 2)
- We began to think of him whenever we saw another collapse in the world, which nobody could explain, whenever we took another blow, whenever we lost another hope, whenever we felt caught in this dead, gray fog that's descending all over the earth.†
Chpt 2.10 (definition 2)
- When they started out on their way to the track phone, walking past the silent line of cars, they saw another figure descending from the train and hurrying to meet them.†
Chpt 2.10 (definition 2)
- The road was descending to the bottom of the valley.†
Chpt 3.1 (definition 2)
- They had returned to the car and had started down the last, descending curves of the road, when she glanced at Galt and he turned to her at once, as if he had expected it.†
Chpt 3.1 (definition 2)
- She did not know which shocked him most: the sight of her standing on the edge of the airfield as he descended from the plane-the sight of her clothes: her delicate, transparent blouse, tailored by the most expensive shop in New York, and the wide, cotton-print skirt she had bought in the valley for sixty cents-her cane, her bandages or the basket of groceries on her arm.†
Chpt 3.2 (definition 2)
- He descended among a group of men, he saw her, he stopped, then ran to her as if flung forward by some emotion so strong that, whatever its nature, it looked like terror.†
Chpt 3.2 (definition 2)
- He stood in the middle of his living room, they were alone, with the window open to the summer night, to the dark trees on a long sweep of ledges descending toward the glitter of the valley's distant lights.†
Chpt 3.2 (definition 2)
- If she left the valley, the screen would close for her as tightly, Atlantis would descend under a vault of rays more impregnable than the bottom of the ocean, and she, too, would be left to struggle for the things she had not known how to see, she, too, would be left to fight a mirage of primordial savagery, while the reality of all that she desired would never come again within her reach, But the pull of the outer world, the pull that drew her to follow the plane, was not the image of…†
Chpt 3.2 (definition 2)
- He did not follow her as she descended to the ground.†
Chpt 3.2 (definition 2)
- A slow, thin rain had been falling since midnight, and there had been no sunrise, only a gray light seeping through a soggy sky-and the brilliant raindrops hanging on the telephone wires had been the only sparks glittering against the chalk of the clouds, the lead of the ocean and the steel of the oil derricks descending as lone bristles down a desolate hillside.†
Chpt 3.5 (definition 2)
- Then, drawn by a sense of irresistible certainty, she found herself descending the stairs, slipping away from the crowd, not toward the platforms and the exit, but into the darkness of the abandoned tunnels.†
Chpt 3.5 (definition 2)
- They had known what to fear; they had grasped and named, before he had, the only way of deliverance left open to him; they had understood the hopelessness of his industrial position, the futility of his struggle, the impossible burdens descending to crush him; they had known that in reason, in justice, in self-preservation, his only course was to drop it all and run-yet they wanted to hold him, to keep him in the sacrificial furnace, to make him let them devour the last of him in the…†
Chpt 3.6 (definition 2)
- He saw a lout scurrying across a patch of lamplight, swinging a length of pipe at a wall of glass panes, battering them down with an animal relish, dancing like a gorilla to the sound of crashing glass, until three husky human figures descended upon him, carrying him writhing to the ground.
Chpt 3.6 (definition 1)descended = came suddenly (attacked)
- Some spoke of him in shrill curses-others whispered, with a look of guilt and terror, as if a nameless retribution were now to descend upon them-some tried, with hysterical evasiveness, to act as if nothing had happened.
Chpt 3.7 (definition 1) *descend = come
- And in that fog of switching definitions which descends upon a frozen mind, you have forgotten that the evils damned by your creed were the virtues required for living, and you have come to believe that actual evils are the practical means of existence.†
Chpt 3.7 (definition 2)
- But you expect industrial giants-who plan in terms of decades, invest in terms of generations and undertake ninety-nine-year contracts-to continue to function and produce, not knowing what random caprice in the skull of what random official will descend upon them at what moment to demolish the whole of their effort.
Chpt 3.7 (definition 1)descend = come suddenly
- By the time the guard descended the stairs, Rearden was there to disarm him, and Danneskjold to tie his hands and feet.†
Chpt 3.10 (definition 2)
- The passengers of the Comet were peering out of the windows; some were descending the steps and approaching.†
Chpt 3.10 (definition 2)
Definitions:
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(1) (descend as in: thieves descended upon us) to come or arrive -- especially suddenly or from above or as an attack
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(2) (descend as in: descend the mountain) move or slope downward