descension
/dəˈsɛnʃ(ə)n/noun rare
1 [in singular] An act of moving downwards, dropping, or falling: a smooth descension back down...
- Our families descended on the Guadalupe River, and what a descension it was.
- If the lack of scoring, poor play and descension in the standings continues, the only way to get better is to trade away a major player for maximum return.
- Good and earned leadership on a great team almost makes descension impossible.
1.1A moral, social, or psychological decline: the descension of political discourse to the level of an ad hominem and bigoted remark...
- This means the descension of this country into an economic abyss.
- Let's just say that I could dismantle his contentions over a post requiring several hundred words complete with sources, resulting in a million downvotes and a descension into comments hell.
- We must complete the chilling task of picturing how slow and tortuous his descension into psychosis really was.
2A flock of woodpeckers.
Origin
Late Middle English: via Old French from Latin descensio(n-), from the verb descendere (see descend). sense 2 was first found in a medieval glossary of collective terms.
- patchwise
- patchwork
- patchwork economy
- patchworked
- worker cooperative
- worker director
- workerism
- workerist
- workerless
- worker major
- worker minor
- worker participation
- worker-peasant
- worker-peasant-soldier
- worker priest
- workers' comp
- workers' compensation
- workers' control
- workers' cooperative
- Workers' Educational Association
- work ethic
- work experience
- workfare
- work fellow
- work field