All 11 Uses

descend
in
Things Fall Apart
(Edited)

"Locusts are descending," was joyfully chanted everywhere, and men, women and children left their work or their play and ran into the open to see the unfamiliar sight.
p. 55.9

descending = coming
And at last the locusts did descend.
p. 56.5

descend = arrive
A deathly silence descended on Okonkwo's compound.
p. 58.4

descended = came
A vague chill had descended on him and his head had seemed to swell, like a solitary walker at night who passes an evil spirit on the way.
p. 62.2

descended = come
It descended on him again, this feeling, when his father walked in that night after killing Ikemefuna.
p. 62.7

descended = came
Now and then a cold shiver descended on his head and spread down his body.
p. 63.7
"Yaa!" replied the thunderous crowd,— then silence descended from the sky and swallowed the noise.
p. 92.9
A strange and sudden weakness descended on Ekwefi as she stood gazing in the direction of the voices like a hen whose only chick has been carried away by a kite.
p. 102.7
They had thrown down their waterpots and lain by the roadside expecting the sinister light to descend on them and kill them.
p. 104.7

descend = come
These moods descended on her suddenly and for no apparent reason.
p. 173.2 *

descended = came
Okonkwo's machete descended twice and the man's head lay beside his uniformed body.
p. 204.9 *

descended = moved down

Definitions:

(1) (descend as in: descend the mountain)
move or slope downward
(2) (descend as in: in descending order)
move down a scale -- as from larger numbers to smaller, or higher notes to lower
(3) (descend as in: descend from royalty)
figuratively, to have come down a path from the past; i.e., to originate or come from -- such as in reference to ancestors or evolutionary origins
(4) (descend as in: descend into poverty)
figuratively, to move downward to a worse or less prestigious situation
(5) (descend as in: descend into deeper thought)
to move from a higher level of abstraction downward to a lower one (from more general to more specific); or to move from superficial to deeper thought
(6) (descend as in: thieves descended upon us)
to come or arrive -- especially suddenly or from above or as an attack
(7) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)