ascent

Formed from ascend on the model of descend/descent.

• (Received Pronunciation, General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /əˈsɛnt/

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• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /əˈsent/
• Rhymes: -ɛnt
• Homophone: assent
• Hyphenation: as‧cent

ascent (countable and uncountable, plural ascents)

1. The act of ascending; a motion upwards.

   He made a tedious ascent of Mont Blanc.

2. The way or means by which one ascends.

   There is a difficult northern ascent from Malaucene of Mont Ventoux.

3. An eminence, hill, or high place.
4. The degree of elevation of an object, or the angle it makes with a horizontal line; inclination; gradient; steepness

   The road has an ascent of 5 degrees.

5. (typography) The ascender height in a typeface.
6. An increase, for example in popularity or hierarchy
   • 2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “The Hunger Games”, in The AV Club‎^[1]:

     That such a safe adaptation could come of The Hunger Games speaks more to the trilogy’s commercial ascent than the book’s actual content, which is audacious and savvy in its dark calculations.

• “ascent”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• casten, enacts, scante, secant, stance