different between child vs descendant

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: ch?ld, ch???ld, IPA^(key): /t??a?ld/, /?t??a?.?ld/
• Rhymes: -a?ld

Etymology 1

From Middle English child, from Old English ?ild (“fetus; female baby; child”), from Proto-Germanic *kelþaz (“womb; fetus”), from Proto-Indo-European *?elt- (“womb”). Cognate with Danish kuld (“brood, litter”), Swedish kull (“brood, litter”), Icelandic kelta, kjalta (“lap”), Gothic ???????????????????????? (kilþei, “womb”), Sanskrit ???? (jarta), ????? (jártu, “vulva”).

Alternative forms

• childe (archaic)
• (plural): childrens (intentionally incorrect, nonstandard); childs (nonstandard, rare)

Noun

child (plural children or (dialectal or archaic) childer)

1. A person who has not yet reached adulthood, whether natural (puberty), cultural (initiation), or legal (majority)
2. (obsolete, specifically) A female child, a girl.
3. (with possessive) One's direct descendant by birth, regardless of age; a son or daughter.

4. (cartomancy) The thirteenth Lenormand card.
5. (figuratively) A figurative offspring, particularly:
   1. A person considered a product of a place or culture, a member of a tribe or culture, regardless of age.
   2. Anything derived from or caused by something.
   3. (computing) A data item, process, or object which has a subservient or derivative role relative to another.
      • 2011, John Mongan, Noah Kindler, Eric Giguère, Programming Interviews Exposed:

        The algorithm pops the stack to obtain a new current node when there are no more children (when it reaches a leaf).

6. Alternative form of childe (“youth of noble birth”)
7. (mathematics) A subordinate node of a tree

Synonyms

• (young person): See Thesaurus:child, Thesaurus:boy, & Thesaurus:girl
• (offspring): See offspring and Thesaurus:son and Thesaurus:daughter, binary clone, progeny, hybrid
• (descendant): See descendant
• (product of a place or era): product, son (male), daughter (female)

Antonyms

• (daughter or son): father, mother, parent
• (person below the age of adulthood): adult
• (data item, process or object in a subordinate role): parent

Derived terms

Related terms

• chield
• Child
• childe
• Childermas

Translations

See also

• orling

Etymology 2

From Middle English childen, from the noun child.

Verb

child (third-person singular simple present childs, present participle childing, simple past and past participle childed)

1. (archaic, transitive, intransitive) To give birth; to beget or procreate.

Translations

Further reading

• Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary (accessed November 2007).
• American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company (2003).

Middle English

Alternative forms

• chyld, chylde, childe, chelde, cild

Etymology

From Old English ?ild, from Proto-Germanic *kelþaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?i?ld/

Noun

child (plural children or childre or child or childres)

1. A baby, infant, toddler; a person in infancy.
2. A child, kid; a young person.
3. An offspring, one of one's progeny.
4. A childish or stupid individual.
5. (Chrisitanity) The Christ child; Jesus as a child.
6. (figuratively) A member of a creed (usually with the religion in the genitive preposing it)
7. A young male, especially one employed as an hireling.
8. A young noble training to become a knight; a squire or childe.
9. The young of animals or plants.
10. A material as a result or outcome.

Related terms

Descendants

• English: child
• Scots: child; chield

References

• “ch?ld, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-23.

English

Etymology

From Middle English dessendaunte, borrowed from Middle French, from Latin d?scend?ns, present participle of descendere, from d? + scandere (“to climb, ascend”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??s?nd?nt/
• Hyphenation: des?cen?dant

Adjective

descendant (not comparable)

1. descending from a biological ancestor.
2. proceeding from a figurative ancestor or source.

Usage notes

The adjective may be spelled either with ant or ent as the final syllable (see descendent). The noun may be spelled only with ant.

Alternative forms

• descendent

Antonyms

• ascendant, ascendent, ascending

Related terms

• descendancy

Noun

descendant (plural descendants)

1. One who is the progeny of a specified person, at any distance of time or through any number of generations.

   The patriarch survived many descendants: five children, a dozen grandchildren, even a great grandchild.

2. (figuratively) A thing that derives directly from a given precursor or source.

   This famous medieval manuscript has many descendants.

3. (biology) A later evolutionary type.

   Dogs evolved as descendants of early wolves.

4. (linguistics) A language that is descended from another.

   English and Scots are the descendants of Old English.

5. (linguistics) A word or form in one language that is descended from a counterpart in an ancestor language.
   • 1993, Jens Elmegård Rasmussen, “The Slavic i-verbs with an excursus on the Indo-European ?-verbs”, in Bela Brogyanyi and Reiner Lipp (editors), Comparative-Historical Linguistics, John Benjamins Publishing, ?ISBN, page 479:

   Synonyms: reflex, derivative

   Antonym: etymon

   Coordinate term: cognate

Usage notes

The adjective may be spelled either with ant or ent as the final syllable (see descendent). The noun may be spelled only with ant.

Synonyms

• (offspring): afterbear, offspring, scion, and see Thesaurus:child & relative

Antonyms

• ascendant
• ancestor
• forebear

Derived terms

• direct descendant
• indirect descendant

Translations

See also

• offspring
• offshoot
• progeny

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin d?scend?ns, d?scend?ntem, the present participle of descendere, itself from d? + scandere (“climb, ascend”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /de.s??.d??/

Verb

descendant

1. present participle of descendre
2. (preceded by en) gerund of descendre

Noun

descendant m (plural descendants, feminine descendante)

1. A descendant; one who is the progeny of someone at any distance of time; e.g. a child; a grandchild, etc.

Antonyms

• ancêtre m
• ascendant m

Adjective

descendant (feminine singular descendante, masculine plural descendants, feminine plural descendantes)

1. (which is) descending.

Antonyms

• ascendant
• montant

Derived terms

• compatibilité descendante

Related terms

• descendance
• descendre

Further reading

• “descendant” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Latin

Verb

d?scendant

1. third-person plural present active subjunctive of d?scend?