My understanding is that the descriptor is the pointer, the description is the pointee (i.e. the entry in the table). The distinction is sometimes quite relevan

My understanding is that the descriptor is the pointer, the description is the pointee (i.e. the entry in the table). The distinction is sometimes quite relevant, for things like dup(2). edit: there must actually be a double indirection from the fd to a table of pointers to file description, as the table is process private while the description is shared (and multiple fds can refer to the same description).