unilateral descent

1. 1.

   line of descent traced through one side of the family

   Broaderdescent

   Narrowermatrilineagepatrilineage

Questions about unilateral descent

What does unilateral descent mean?

unilateral descent means "line of descent traced through one side of the family".

Is unilateral descent a common word?

unilateral 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.