Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Moving, going, or growing upward.
  • adjective Moving or progressing toward a higher level or degree.
  • adjective Botany Growing or directing upward from a curved or slanted base, as certain plant stems.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Proceeding from a lower position to a higher; rising; moving upward; figuratively, proceeding from the less to the greater; proceeding from a later to an earlier time; rising from grave to acute.
  • In botany, growing upward, as the stem of a plant, which is called the ascending axis.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Rising; moving upward.
  • adjective (Astron.) the increasing latitude of a planet.
  • adjective (Geneol.) the line of relationship traced backward or through one's ancestors. One's father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, etc., are in the line direct ascending.
  • adjective having, that node of the moon or a planet wherein it passes the ecliptic to proceed northward. It is also called the northern node.
  • adjective (Math.) A series in which each term is greater than the preceding.
  • adjective signs east of the meridian.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of ascend.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the act of changing location in an upward direction
  • adjective moving or going or growing upward

Etymologies

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Examples

  • My list in ascending order of my happiness when they bit it *.

    Even Obama’s sad BSG is over 2009

  • So, in ascending order, for the third prize I chose Night Passage, The Thimbles, number 53, especially pleased and heartened to find that in your midst there appears to be a conceptual artist hard at work.

    Archive 2009-06-01 2009

  • So, in ascending order, for the third prize I chose Night Passage, The Thimbles, number 53, especially pleased and heartened to find that in your midst there appears to be a conceptual artist hard at work.

    Friends of the Willoughby Wallace Memorial Library Art Show, Stony Creek, Conn. 2009

  • On the table a column of steam was ascending from the big mixing-pan.

    CHAPTER 20 2010

  • If you do, it means one of three things – in ascending order of unwelcomeness:

    unexpected 2008

  • The top 10, in ascending order of popularity will be revealed during the final homestand, Sept. 22-26.

    USATODAY.com 2008

  • I've talked to lots of reviewers who, like me, are making their year-end lists, and almost all of them seem to agree it's been a challenge to create and sort a list this year, to put games in ascending order of superiority.

    Was It Really A Bleh Year? SVGL 2008

  • “All companies of the 2007 Fast 50 sorted by rank in ascending order.”

    Lists & Rankings: Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 « ResourceShelf 2007

  • If this were my graph, the line would be at a 45 degree angle ascending from the (0,0) point.

    The answer will shrink your ulcer. Jessica Hagy 2007

  • February 26, 2005 03: 43 schlarb: re: Soul-Junk chronology: all of the full length records run in ascending order from 1950 through, most recently, 1958. conversely all the EP's run in decending order from 1949 through, again most recently, 1937.

    Not one to shy away from a challenge (Music (For Robots)) 2005

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