different between plunge vs descend

English

Etymology

From Middle English plungen, ploungen, Anglo-Norman plungier, from Old French plongier, (Modern French plonger), from unattested Late Latin frequentative to throw a leaded line, from plumbum (“lead”). Compare plumb, plounce.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pl?nd?/
• Rhymes: -?nd?

Verb

plunge (third-person singular simple present plunges, present participle plunging, simple past and past participle plunged)

1. (transitive) To thrust into liquid, or into any penetrable substance; to immerse.

2. (figuratively, transitive) To cast, stab or throw into some thing, state, condition or action.

3. (transitive, figuratively) This term needs a definition. Please help out and add a definition, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
4. (transitive, obsolete) To baptize by immersion.
5. (intransitive) To dive, leap or rush (into water or some liquid); to submerge oneself.

6. (figuratively, intransitive) To fall or rush headlong into some thing, action, state or condition.
7. (intransitive) To pitch or throw oneself headlong or violently forward, as a horse does.
   • 1654, Joseph Hall, Select Thoughts, or Choice Helps for a Pious Spirit

     some wild colt, which […] flings and plunges

8. (intransitive, slang) To bet heavily and recklessly; to risk large sums in gambling.
9. (intransitive, obsolete) To entangle or embarrass (mostly used in past participle).
10. (intransitive, obsolete) To overwhelm, overpower.

Translations

Noun

plunge (plural plunges)

1. the act of plunging or submerging
2. a dive, leap, rush, or pitch into (into water)

   to take the water with a plunge

   A plunge into the sea

3. (dated) A swimming pool
4. (figuratively) the act of pitching or throwing oneself headlong or violently forward, like an unruly horse
5. (slang) heavy and reckless betting in horse racing; hazardous speculation
6. (obsolete) an immersion in difficulty, embarrassment, or distress; the condition of being surrounded or overwhelmed; a strait; difficulty

Translations

References

• plunge in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• “plunge”, in OED Online ?, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000

Anagrams

• pungle

English

Etymology

From Middle English decenden, borrowed from Old French descendre, from Latin descendere, past participle descensus (“to come down, go down, fall, sink”), from de- (“down”) + scandere (“to climb”). See scan, scandent. Compare ascend, condescend, transcend.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??s?nd/
• Hyphenation (US): de?scend; (UK): des?cend
• Rhymes: -?nd

Verb

descend (third-person singular simple present descends, present participle descending, simple past and past participle descended)

1. (intransitive) To pass from a higher to a lower place; to move downwards; to come or go down in any way, for example by falling, flowing, walking, climbing etc.
   • 2002, John Griesemer, No One Thinks of Greenland: A Novel

     Rudy felt a gust of fear rise in his chest, and he looked again in the mirror, but the hangar and stable were now beyond the rise, out of sight, he was descending so fast.

   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The History of the University of Cambridge: From the Conquest to the Year 1634

   We will here descend to matters of later date.

   • 1611, King James Version, Matthew vii. 25.

   The rain descended, and the floods came.

2. (intransitive, poetic) To enter mentally; to retire.

   • [He] with holiest meditations fed, Into himself descended.

3. (intransitive, with on or upon) To make an attack, or incursion, as if from a vantage ground; to come suddenly and with violence.
   • 2013, Deltrice Alfred Grossmith, Arctic Warriors: A Personal Account of Convoy PQ18

     more aircraft descending on us than had done during previous visits from the snoopers in their usual ones and twos.

   • 1726, Alexander Pope, Odyssey

   And on the suitors let thy wrath descend.

4. (intransitive) To come down to a lower, less fortunate, humbler, less virtuous, or worse, state or rank; to lower or abase oneself
   • August 25, 1759, Samuel Johnson, The Idler No. 71

     He […] began to descend to familiar questions, endeavouring to accommodate his discourse to the grossness of rustic understandings.

5. (intransitive) To pass from the more general or important to the specific or less important matters to be considered.
6. (intransitive) To come down, as from a source, original, or stock
7. to be derived (from)
8. to proceed by generation or by transmission; to happen by inheritance.

9. (intransitive, astronomy) To move toward the south, or to the southward.
10. (intransitive, music) To fall in pitch; to pass from a higher to a lower tone.
11. (transitive) To go down upon or along; to pass from a higher to a lower part of

Synonyms

• go down

Antonyms

• ascend
• go up

Derived terms

• descender

Related terms

• descent

Translations

Anagrams

• scended

French

Verb

descend

1. third-person singular present indicative of descendre