All 5 Uses of
descend
in
Song of Myself
- She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd to her feet.
*descended = hung down
- An unseen hand also pass'd over their bodies,
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.†
- Behavior lawless as snow-flakes, words simple as grass, uncomb'd
head, laughter, and naivete,
Slow-stepping feet, common features, common modes and emanations,
They descend in new forms from the tips of his fingers,
They are wafted with the odor of his body or breath, they fly out of
the glance of his eyes.†
- I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will,
O despairer, here is my neck,
By God, you shall not go down!†
- Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest,
Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing twilight,
Toss, sparkles of day and dusk—toss on the black stems that decay
in the muck,
Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.†
Definitions:
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(1)
(descend as in: descend the mountain) move or slope downward
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(2)
(descend as in: in descending order) move down a scale -- as from larger numbers to smaller, or higher notes to lower
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(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
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(4)
(descend as in: descend into poverty) figuratively, to move downward to a worse or less prestigious situation
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(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
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(6)
(descend as in: thieves descended upon us) to come or arrive -- especially suddenly or from above or as an attack