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descending

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Ordered such that each element is less than or equal to the previous element.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

dihsehnding

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

dɪˈsɛndɪŋ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Ordered such that each element is less than or equal to the previous element. (of a sequence)

  2. computing

    Causing a sequence to follow a descending order.

  3. Moving or sloping downwards.

noun

  1. A descent.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Ordered such that each element is less than or equal to the previous element. (of a sequence)

Used this way, descending is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use descending

  • “The descending elevator brought them quickly to the ground floor.”adjective
  • “The airplane started descending slowly towards the airport runway.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Ordered / causing

descending orderdescending scale

Other combinations

descending colondescending aortabefore descendingdescending branchafter descendingdescending limb

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • descendverbBase word

    Move downward and lower, but not necessarily all the way.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • descending aortanounCompound term

    The descending part of the aorta that branches into the thoracic and abdominal aortae.

  • descending colonnounCompound term

    The part of the large intestine that descends from the transverse colon to the sigmoid colon.

  • descending nodenounCompound term

    The point at which an orbit crosses the ecliptic plane going south.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.