bilateral descent

1. 1.

   line of descent traced through both the maternal and paternal sides of the family

   Broaderdescent

Questions about bilateral descent

What does bilateral descent mean?

bilateral descent means "line of descent traced through both the maternal and paternal sides of the family".

Is bilateral descent a common word?

bilateral descent is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.