Etymologically
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ascend

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Pronunciation

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

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