To rise above the limits of; overcome, surpass.

Great leaders are expected to transcend the limitations of politics, especially during wartime and national crises. A great writer may transcend geographical boundaries to become internationally respected. And certain laws of human nature seem to transcend historical periods and hold true for all times and all places.

(1) To stoop to a level of lesser importance or dignity. (2) To behave as if superior.

Back when society was more rigidly structured, *condescend* didn't sound so negative. People of higher rank, power, or social position had to overlook certain established rules of behavior if they wished to have social dealings with people of lower status, but such *condescension* was usually gracious and courteous. In today's more classless society, the term implies a manner that may be slightly offensive. A poor relation is unlikely to be grateful to a wealthy and *condescending* relative who passes on her secondhand clothes, and employees at an office party may not be thrilled when the boss's wife condescends to mingle with them. Often the word is used rather unseriously, as when a friend comments that a snooty sales clerk condescended to wait on her after ignoring her for several minutes.

(1) One that has come down from another or from a common stock. (2) One deriving directly from a forerunner or original.

*Descendant* is the opposite of *ancestor*. Your grandparents' descendants are those who are descended from them—your parents, your brothers and sisters, and any children that any of you may have. It's been claimed that every person on earth is a descendant of Muhammad, and of every historical person before him—Julius Caesar, the Buddha, etc.—who started a line of *descent*. (Some of us still find this hard to believe.) And not all descendants are human; every modern thesaurus, for example, could be called the descendant of the one devised by Peter Mark Roget in 1852.

Governing or controlling interest; domination.

In the course of a year, the sun appears to pass through the twelve constellations of the zodiac in sequence, and all the planets also lie close to the solar path. The constellation and planet that are just rising, or *ascendant*, above the eastern horizon in the sun's path at the moment of a child's birth are said by astrologers to exercise a lifelong controlling influence over the child. This is the idea that lies at the heart of *ascendancy*, though the word today no longer hints at supernatural powers.

A word that means the opposite of some other word.

*Antonym* includes the Greek prefix *ant-*, meaning “opposite” (see ANT/ANTI). Antonyms are often thought of in pairs: *hot/cold, up/down, wet/dry, buy/sell, failure/success.* But a word may have more than one antonym *(old/young, old/new),* especially when one of the words has synonyms *(small/large, small/big, little/big)*, and a word may have many approximate antonyms *(adore/hate, adore/detest, adore/loathe).* But although lots of words have synonyms, not so many have antonyms. What would be the antonym of *pink*? *weather*? *semipro*? *thirty*? *firefighter*? *wax*? *about*? *consider*?

Of, relating to, or being the person for whom something is named.

Things as different as a bird, a river, and a drug may be named to honor someone. The Canadian city of Vancouver was named after the explorer George Vancouver; the diesel engine was named for its inventor, Rudolph Diesel; Alzheimer's disease was named after the physician Alois Alzheimer; and so on. Common eponymous terms include *Ohm 's law, Parkinson 's Law,* and the *Peter Principle.* And if the Beatles' famous “white album” actually has a name, it's usually called “The Beatles,” which means that it's eponymous as well. Don't be surprised if *eponymous* turns out to be a hard word to use; lots of other people have discovered the same thing.

Part of a personal name based on the name of one's father or one of his ancestors.

A patronymic, or *patronym* (see also PATER/PATR), is generally formed by adding a prefix or suffix to a name. Thus, a few centuries ago, the male patronymic of Patrick was Fitzpatrick (“Patrick's son”), that of Peter was Peterson or Petersen, that of Donald was MacDonald or McDonald, and that of Hernando was Hernández. Today, of course, each of these is an ordinary family name, or *surname*. In Russia, both a patronymic and a surname are still used; in the name Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, for example, Ilyich is a patronymic meaning “son of Ilya.”

A name that someone (such as a writer) uses instead of his or her real name.

The Greek *pseudo-* is used in English to mean “false,” or sometimes “resembling.” A pseudonym is thus a false name, or alias. A writer's pseudonym is called a *pen name*, as in the case of Howard O'Brien (who usually writes as “Anne Rice” but sometimes under other names), and an actor's pseudonym is called a *stage name*, as in the case of Marion Morrison (“John Wayne”). A *cadre name* may be used for the sake of secrecy by a revolutionary plotter such as Vladimir Ulyanov (“Lenin”) or Iosif Dzhugashvili (“Stalin”). And in many religious orders, members adopt *devotional names*, as Agnes Bojaxhiu did in 1931 (“Teresa,” later known as “Mother Teresa”).