descend from

descend from (someone or something)

1. Literally, to move from a higher point to a lower one. The bride looked simply gorgeous as she descended from the balcony in her flowing gown.
2. To originate from a particular ancestor or source. I was shocked to learn that I descended from key figures in the American Revolution.
See also: descend
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

descend from someone

or some group [for a living creature] to come from a particular set of ancestors. I descend from a large family of Dutch traders. Wally is descended from Daniel Boone.
See also: descend

descend from something

to move down from something. The bird descended from the top of the tree to a lower branch. Take care when you descend from the ladder.
See also: descend
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • descend from (someone or something)
  • look down at (someone or something)
  • pure
  • be (as) pure as the driven snow
  • in fine feather
  • white wedding
  • take (one's) picture
  • down on one knee
  • attract
  • attract (one's) attention
References in periodicals archive
"The weight of the evidence is now suggesting that not only did birds not descend from dinosaurs, but that some species now believed to be dinosaurs may have descended from birds," said Ruben.
The controllers reportedly instructed the British Airways aircraft to descend from 16,800 feet to 16,500 feet and the collision avoidance system was triggered.
I descend from 2 Black parents, 4 Black grandparents, 8 great grandparents and 16 great-great grandparents.
A fruit or a cure, both of which also exist mentally, actually descend from their imaginal origin--that is to say they are manifested from man's repository of knowledge.
Now, the things that descend from the dominion (malakut) to the kingdom (mulk) are in a similar situation.
When the things that descend from the Divine Treasures to the isthmus and imaginal world and then to the natural and physical world are compared to their ideas and realities in the higher worlds, it becomes apparent that the distinctions are not two-sided ones and the differences are not ones resulting from separation.
In the descent to nature, the origin cannot be put alongside the things that descend from it and be counted as though it were one of them.
In the descent to nature, because the origin is comprehensively distinct to the things that descend from it, it encompasses them and is present with them wherever they happen to be.
Hence the need for an intermediate landing at the top of the box to which escalators descend from the level of the upper lines.
As you descend from the platform of the Geffen's reception area, you see a dimly lit proscenium that fills the museum's cavernous main gallery.
The latter, which descend from Lucian, do not pretend to be recording a conversation which has really taken place but present themselves as a production of fantasy in which the play of ideas between the interlocutors is more significant than their historical verisimilitude.
The two largest halls are underground, where reached by stairs and escalators that descend from the ground floor lobby, and also by external stairs that descend to courts at first and second basement levels between the building and the park-side road.