descendency or descendancy?

LegacyUser

Deane Gearig said: What is the proper spelling, sometimes you use descendency and sometimes you use descendancy? I have used both, myself. I teach it, so I want to be correct.

See attached image

LegacyUser

Shanna Jones said: It should be descendancy. Thanks for the feedback!
Descendency is property of descendence and descendancy is descendants considered collectively.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Neither spelling appears in any mainstream dictionary nor is recognized by a Spellcheck. The more the word is used the more chance it will eventually become an acceptable word and appear in dictionaries. For now (either spelling) it is just a "made up" word that suits genealogical uses.

LegacyUser

Deane Gearig said: I'm not sure I understand "Descendency is property of descendence". Perhaps use it in a sentence. In the image above, are both instances used correctly, or should they both be descendancy?

LegacyUser

Dabrien 'Dabe' Murphy said: I know this thread is a couple years old, but because we had the same question come up at work recently (and because this is the top hit on Google) I just wanted to share my own two cents...

The way *I* would parse it, "descendence/descendency" refers to the act of [physically] descending — like, elevators, escalators, and stairs all provide methods of "descendence" — whereas "descendance/descendancy" relates to *PEOPLE* (descendANTs).

LegacyUser

Amy Archibald said: Both spellings are in the Merriam Webster Dictionary and show the same definition.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Yea, in a similar situation when i went to university and was taking linear algebra, if we ever used the term "Dependant" in a proof (e.g., function x is dependant on y, etc.), our instructor would take off a full letter grade. A "dependant" would be a person that is "dependent" on his parents or someone else. This is further confused by the British noun "dependent" which is equivalent to the non-British "Dependant".

With the exception of the British, dependent is an adjective and dependant is a noun. Depending on which spelling checker you have, dependant may actually be flagged as an incorrect spelling!

LegacyUser

Paul said: I first engaged in this thread four years ago and thought things must have changed by now, but the word is still difficult to find in dictionaries in England. Collins is one of the most commonly used dictionaries in the UK and I just found the below at https://www.collinsdictionary.com/spe...



Even if I type "descendancy" or "descendency" here, both come up with a red line beneath, indicating these words are not in my computer's dictionary, either!

LegacyUser

Elmer Reagan said: A descendant is a person... So the correct spelling is descendancy.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Heh. It's not so black and white based on the "dent" or "dant" part of the word. Notice that you did not use the word "Descendantcy". The "dant" isn't even there and most of us wouldn't know the derivation of the "ancy" part of the word. It likely has nothing to do with a person.

It probably has to do more with the whole word. if you were to refer to all of George's descendants, they would just all be his "Descendants" (i.e., a noun).

However, everywhere but in Britain (where there is no difference), the word descendent is an adjective meaning "to descend from", so if you were referring to all of the people who "descended from" George, they would be a "descendent people" of George, or more commonly his descendency.

But it's kind of a moot issue since neither descendancy or descendency are formally defined words in Britain, and where you can find them elsewhere, they have the same meaning.

And even if they were, you would think that the opposites of ascendancy and ascendency (real words considered to have the same meaning) would be descendancy and descendency respectively.

Also if you look at the formal meanings of the words ascendancy/ascendency, they really don't have that much to do with "Ancestry" (which you would assume to be the opposite of Descendancy/Descendency.

So the derivation of the world involves FAR more than "dant" being a person. It ties into many inconsistencies in the way the language has evolved and is evolving.

(although "dant" is probably as good an explanation as any :-)

LegacyUser

Elmer Reagan said: You are thinking way too hard on this and unnecessarily way over intellectualizing..

There are words that eliminate letters for variations of the word..

Bottom, line the only logical correct spelling is Descendancy.

LegacyUser

Elmer Reagan said: You are thinking way too hard on this and unnecessarily way over intellectualizing..

There are words that eliminate letters for variations of the word..

Bottom, line the only logical correct spelling is Descendancy.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: From the https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/... lexico (powered by Oxford), it appears that either can be used. "descendancy
(also descendency)"

"Origin:
Early 17th century (in an earlier sense). Originally from descend + -ency, after descendent and some forms descendant [noun]; compare post-classical Latin descendentia, Spanish descendencia, Italian †descendenza (now discendenza)."

I tend to use descendancy when I talk of descendant or descendancy research.