ascension

From Middle English ascencioun, from Old French ascension, from Latin ascēnsiō, ascēnsiōnem (“ascent”).

• IPA^(key): /əˈsɛnʃən/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

ascension (countable and uncountable, plural ascensions)

1. The act of ascending; an ascent.

   The ascension of the hot-air balloon gave us a better view.

2. A transcendence of the material world; a transition to a higher form, state, or plane of existence.
   • 2019 January 7, “Exploring the SCP Foundation: Pattern Screamers” (6:12 from the start), in The Exploring Series‎, archived from the original on 11 January 2023:

     It seems that they existed in some sort of previous incarnation of our universe, and use abstract terms to describe their existence, such as "feeding on concepts". They prepared for some sort of ascension, but then the Pattern came, which they describe at first as an all-consuming emptiness, elaborating by saying that anything that passed into it was torn asunder, subjected to a set of principles and order that grinds things down to nothing, in a process of which entropy is just one part.

3. That which rises, as from distillation.
   • 1683, Thomas Browne, “Observations upon Several Plants Mention’d in Scripture”, in Certain Miscellany Tracts:

     vaporous ascensions from the stomach

• ascend
• descension

• accession

• canonises, sonancies

Inherited from Old French ascension, borrowed from Latin ascēnsiōnem.

• IPA^(key): /a.sɑ̃.sjɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

ascension f (plural ascensions)

1. ascent
2. ascension

• “ascension”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Borrowed from Latin ascēnsiō, ascēnsiōnem.

ascension oblique singular, f (oblique plural ascensions, nominative singular ascension, nominative plural ascensions)

1. ascent

• descension

• → Middle English: ascencioun
  • English: ascension
• French: ascension
• Norman: ascension