descent vs folk

descent and folk both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
descent	Yes	No	No	No
folk	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, folk is a hyponym of descent; that is, folk is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than descent:

Other hyponyms of descent include family, family line, kinfolk, kinsfolk, phratry, sept, side, breed line.

descent (noun)	folk (noun)
the act of changing your location in a downward direction	the traditional and typically anonymous music that is an expression of the life of people in a community
properties attributable to your ancestry	people in general (often used in the plural)
a movement downward	a social division of (usually preliterate) people
the hereditary derivation of an individual	people descended from a common ancestor
a downward slope or bend
the kinship relation between an individual and the individual's progenitors