ascendant

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   most powerful or important or influential

   The economically ascendant class.

2. 2
   adj

   tending or directed upward

   Rooted and ascendant strength like that of foliage- John Ruskin.

3. 3
   noun

   position or state of being dominant or in control

   That idea was in the ascendant.

PIE word *h₂éd The adjective is derived from Late Middle English ascendent (“ascending, rising; increasing in quantity; (astronomy) rising above the horizon”) [and other forms], borrowed from Old French ascendant, from Latin ascendentem, the accusative singular of ascendēns (“ascending, rising”), the present participle of ascendō, adscendō (“to climb up, go up, move upwards; to rise; to spring up”), from ad- (prefix meaning ‘(up) to’) + scandō (“to ascend, climb, mount; to clamber”) (from Proto-Indo-European *skend- (“to climb, scale; to dart; to jump; to scan (poetry)”)). The English word is...

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