the.com/ascendance
the slow physics of rising until everyone else has to look up.
means The state or process of gaining dominant power, influence, or position over others.
from From the Latin 'ascendere,' to climb up — a fusion of 'ad-' (toward) and 'scandere' (to climb), the same 'scandere' that gives us 'scale' and 'scandal' (which originally meant a stumbling-block, something you trip over rather than climb). English took it through Old French 'ascendre,' first in the literal sense of climbing — stars 'ascending' the night sky — before the metaphor of power and prestige rose to the top, as metaphors of climbing tend to do.
- latin root
- From ascendere, meaning to climb upward.
- vs ascension
- Ascendance is power; ascension is the trip itself.
- astrology
- The ascendant sign shapes how the world first reads you.
- chess sense
- Positions gain ascendancy before a single piece falls.
napoleon's rise to power — french general who went from obscurity to emperor of france, 1804
amazon's market dominance — jeff bezos's company grew from online bookstore to $1.7 trillion market cap by 2024
china's economic surge — gdp growth from $150 billion in 1990 to $17.9 trillion in 2023, becoming world's 2nd largest economy