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. According to modern evolutionary biology, all living beings could be descendants of a unique ancestor commonl ...

, 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 that ...

, one of the major concepts of cultural anthropology **

Pedigree chart A pedigree chart is a diagram that shows the occurrence of certain traits through different generations of a family, most commonly for humans, show dogs, and race horses. Definition The word pedigree is a corruption of the Anglo-Norman French ''p ...

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 of ...

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 ...

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

Heritage Heritage may refer to: History and society * A heritage asset A heritage asset is an item which has value because of its contribution to a nation's society, knowledge and/or culture. Such items are usually physical assets, but some countries also ...

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 () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

** Tree diagram (disambiguation) *

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. Offi ...

(law and property)

Mathematics

Infinite descent In mathematics, a proof by infinite descent, also known as Fermat's method of descent, is a particular kind of proof by contradiction used to show that a statement cannot possibly hold for any number, by showing that if the statement were to hold f ...

, a method going back to Fermat to solve Diophantine equations *

Descent (mathematics) In mathematics, the idea of descent extends the intuitive idea of 'gluing' in topology. Since the topologists' glue is the use of equivalence relations on topological spaces, the theory starts with some ideas on identification. Descent of vecto ...

, an idea extending the notion of "gluing" in topology * Hadamard's method of descent, a technique for solving partial differential equations *

Gradient descent Gradient descent is a method for unconstrained mathematical optimization. It is a first-order iterative algorithm for minimizing a differentiable multivariate function. The idea is to take repeated steps in the opposite direction of the gradi ...

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

permutation In mathematics, a permutation of a set can mean one of two different things: * an arrangement of its members in a sequence or linear order, or * the act or process of changing the linear order of an ordered set. An example of the first mean ...

statistic in combinatorics

Other uses

* Descent (aeronautics), the decrease of an aircraft in altitude during flight * Descent (font), the distance that a typeface descends below the baseline in typography *

Katabasis A katabasis or catabasis (; ) 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 Greek underworld, also known as Hades. The term is ...

As a proper name

Film

* ''

The Descent ''The Descent'' is a 2005 British horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film stars actresses Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, Nora-Jane Noone and MyAnna Buring. The plot follows six women who e ...

'', 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'', 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. ''De ...

'', 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", a song by Celldweller from '' Soundtrack for the Voices in My Head Vol. 01'' * "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'' * "Descent", a song by Sylosis from '' A Sign of Things to Come'' * "A Descent", a song by Born of Osiris from ''

A Higher Place ''A Higher Place'' is the debut studio album by American progressive metalcore band Born of Osiris. It was released through Sumerian Records on July 7, 2009. ''A Higher Place'' debuted at number 73 on the ''Billboard'' 200, selling over 6,0 ...

'' * "The Descent", a song by Insomnium from '' Shadows of the Dying Sun'' (bonus track) * "The Descent", a song by Polaris from '' The Death of Me''

Television

* "Descent" (''NCIS: Los Angeles''), a 2013 episode of '' NCIS: Los Angeles'' * "Descent" (''The Outer Limits''), a 1999 episode of ''The Outer Limits'' * "Descent" (''Stargate SG-1''), a 2002 episode of ''Stargate SG-1'' * "Descent" (''Star Trek: The Next Generation''), a two-part 1993 episode of ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' * "Descent" (''Star Wars Resistance'') * "The Descent" (''The Vampire Diaries''), a 2011 episode of ''The Vampire Diaries'' * "Descent" (''X-Men: The Animated Series''), a 1997 episode * ''Descent'', a 2024 Australian online comedy series released by Grouse House