ascend

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ascenden,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin ascendō (“to climb up, mount”),^[5][3][6][7] formed from ad- (“to”) and scandō (“to climb”).^{[5][8][9][10]} Barnhart, the AHD and Dictionary.com take it partly through Anglo-Norman ascendre,^[11][8][12] which is recorded from 1267 in the senses to climb, to rise and to rise in status;^[13] the MED gives both Latin and French as the source.^[2] Barnhart compares the Latin verb with Old Irish sescaind (“he sprang”) and Ancient Greek σκάνδαλον (skándalon, “trap”), from Proto-Indo-European *skand-.^[11][8] The Latin verb is also the source of scan and scansion, and is related to scale, escalate, scandal and slander.^[14] The Old English word for going up was Old English stīgan.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To go up, climb: 1382, in the Wycliffite Bible.^[5][11] The MED quotes the Wycliffite Bible of about 1384: "The hill in whiche Moyses ascendide".^[2]

Semantic evolution

Chaucer used the verb some twenty times, nearly all in the astronomical sense of a planet or sign rising above the horizon.^[15][5] From about 1530 it was used of inanimate things rising,^[5] and since the mid 16th century figuratively, of rising in degree, quality or social station.^[5] In legal and genealogical writing (1528) it meant going back in time or up a line of descent,^[5] and since 1597 it has described a sound rising in pitch.^[5] The sense of a road or ground sloping upwards is recorded from 1832.^[5][3] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to mount upwards" and, with an object, "to climb up any thing".^[16]

Timeline

• 1382 – to climb or go up, in the Wycliffite Bible.^[5][11]
• c. 1400 – of a planet or sign, to rise above the horizon; also, with an object, to climb a hill or stair.^[5][15]
• 1528 – to go back in time or in genealogical succession.^[5]
• c. 1530 – of inanimate things, to rise.^[5]
• c. 1550 – to rise in degree, quality or social station.^[5]
• 1597 – of sounds, to rise in pitch; also, to ascend a throne, in Shakespeare's Richard II.^[5]
• 1667 – of sounds, to rise into the air, in Milton's Paradise Lost.^[5]
• 1832 – to slope upwards.^[5][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To go or move up; to climb or mount something: The hikers ascended the ridge before noon.^[17][4][5]
2. To rise to a higher point, level, rank or degree.^[17][5]
3. To slope upwards: The road ascends steeply from the river.^[17][5]
4. Of a star or planet, to rise above the horizon.^[4][5]
5. To follow a river upstream towards its source.^[17]
6. To trace a genealogy or a line of events back in time.^[17][5]
7. In music, to rise in pitch, or to sing or play a scale from the lower to the higher notes.^[17][5]
8. ascend the throne: to become king or queen.^[17][5]

Word family

• ascendable
• unascended
• reascend

Related words

• ascent
• ascendant
• ascendance
• ascendancy
• ascending
• ascender
• ascension
• transcend
• descend
• condescend
• scan
• scale

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
14. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
15. ^ a b Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins