[f. as prec. + -ING2.]
1. Rising, mounting up.
1667. [see ASCEND v. 3].
1715. Pope, Iliad, XVI. 436. Dark o’er the fields th’ ascending vapour flies.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 41. The uppermost portion of the ascending current.
b. spec. in Typogr.
1676. Moxon, Print Lett., 6. The Top-line is the line that bounds the top of the Ascending Letters.
1867. [see ASCENDER.]
2. Sloping upwards; acclivitous.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Countr. Farm, 5. Want of Water in high and ascending places.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., II. 754. Bak’d in the Sun-shine of ascending Fields.
1881. Daily News, 31 Aug., 2/2. A handsome building in a fine situation, looking upon a broad water and backed by ascending woods.
3. Directed upwards: applied spec. in Phys. to structures that pass, or serve as a passage, from a lower to a higher part of the body; in Bot. a. to a procumbent stem that gradually curves to an erect position; b. to ovules attached a little above the base of the ovary, and pointing obliquely upwards; c. fig. to development of higher forms from lower, as of petals from sepals, carpels from stamens, etc.
a. 1713. Cheselden, in Derham’s Phys.-Theol. (1752), IV. vii. 157. The blood … brought to the heart by the ascending cava.
1854. Balfour, Bot., 47. The stem is the ascending portion of the axis.
1859. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., V. 365/2. The ascending colon lies on the right kidney.
1861. Miss Pratt, Flower. Pl., I. 3. An ascending stem … on first emerging from the root, is horizontal, and then becomes erect.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 113. Dryas … ovule 1, ascending.
4. In various transf. or fig. uses; cf. ASCEND v. 7, 8.
1762. Kames, Elem. Crit., iv. (1833), 114. An increasing series of numbers … is commonly called an ascending series.
1869. Ouseley, Counterp., xiii. 72. It [the diminished fifth] should be prepared by a sixth, with an ascending bass.
5. Going backwards in order of genealogical succession; of or pertaining to ancestors.
1703. J. Quick, Serious Inquiry, 12. In the Right Line ascending and descending, there are as many Degrees as there be Generations and Persons.
1757. Burke, Abridgm. Eng. Hist., Wks. X. 334. The ascending collateral branch was much regarded amongst the ancient Germans.
1875. [see ASCEND v. 9.]
