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Ascendancy   /əsˈɛndənsi/   Listen
Ascendancy

noun
1.
The state that exists when one person or group has power over another.  Synonyms: ascendance, ascendence, ascendency, control, dominance.






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"Ascendancy" Quotes from Famous Books



... the young girl fixed her imperious look on the Catalan, who, as if fascinated by it, came slowly towards Edmond, and offered him his hand. His hatred, like a powerless though furious wave, was broken against the strong ascendancy which Mercedes exercised over him. Scarcely, however, had he touched Edmond's hand than he felt he had done all he could do, and rushed ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the text for evacuating the kingdom of Narsinga, or Bijanagur, is very unsatisfactory, as it in fact bordered on their dominions. More probably they could not agree on the partition, each being afraid of the others acquiring an ascendancy, and they satisfied themselves with the enormous spoils of the capital. This event has been ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... creed, which allowed no loophole by which the offender might escape, still there was a kindness and even a humility in his expostulation, which caused his zeal never to offend, and often to create serious reflection. His wife was a tall, handsome woman, who evidently had usurped an ascendancy over her husband in all points unconnected with his calling. She too was devout; but hers was not the true religion, for it had not charity for its basis. She was clever and severe; spoke seldom; but the few words which escaped from her lips were ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... doubt that the framework of ancient society rested on the basis of kinship, and that the structure of the ancient gens brought the mother and child into the same gens. Under these circumstances the gens of the mother would have some ascendancy in the ancient household. On such an established fact rests the assumption of a matriarchate, or period of Mutterrecht. The German scholar Bachofen in his monumental work "Das Mutterrecht" discussed the traces of female "authority" among the Lycians, Cretans, ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard

... freemen by the master's right to count three for every five slaves, "because it is absurd and anti-republican to suffer property to be represented as men, and vice versa, because it gives the South an unjust ascendancy over other portions of territory, and a power which may be perverted on ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... desire it, not a man of all the host shall return to give tidings to his friends. You ask me to stay my hand. Ah! It is hard. But you ask it; you, my little lover-playmate of the sunny Saskatchewan. I consent!" Then he strode down among his men, and ordered them to cease. Naught-but the ascendancy which the splendid chief had gained over his followers, through his wisdom and his prowess, could have prevailed upon them to stay their hand, now that the men who had broken solemn faith were at their mercy. But they unstrung their ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins

... give them political power and importance beyond even their own intentions. They would be courted by excited parties in their contests with each other. At some time, they may perhaps attain political ascendancy, and this is more probable, as we may suppose that there will have been a great emigration of whites from the country. Imagine the government of such legislators. Imagine then the sort of laws that will be passed, to confound ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... prepared to bow down to anything, and kiss anything however vile and ugly, provided a priest commanded them; and as for the old governor, what with the influence which his daughters exerted, and what with the ascendancy which the red-haired man had obtained over him, he dared not say his purse, far less his soul, was his own. Only think of an Englishman not being master of his own purse. My acquaintance, the lady's maid, assured me, that to her certain knowledge, he had disbursed to the red-haired ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... field. But despite my ignorance of things exclusively military, I have felt the truth of the imperious demonstrations with which it is replete, as one feels the presence of the sun behind a cloud. His book has over the reader that moral ascendancy which is everything in war and which determines success, according to the author. This ascendancy, like truth itself, is the sort which cannot be questioned. Coming from the superior mind of a leader who inspires faith it imposes obedience by its very ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... was truth, simpleness, and honour free from all guile. Our female readers will understand us fully if we say in one word that Zulma was in no sense a coquette. She was always sincere, even in her by-play, which was the secret of her power and ascendancy. This being so, the reader will be prepared for the statement that she never really supposed the peculiar relations of Cary with Pauline could affect her. Jealousy she had not, because she was incapable of it, but even if she had not been above this most diabolical ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... the new deputies formed the group named after the district of the Gironde, where several of their leaders had been elected. The orator Vergniaud, pre-eminent among companions of singular eloquence, the philosopher Condorcet, the veteran journalist Brissot, gave to this party an ascendancy in the Chamber and an influence in the country the more dangerous because it appeared to belong to men elevated above the ordinary regions of political strife. Without the fixed design of turning the monarchy into a republic, the orators of the Gironde sought to carry the revolutionary ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... only not respond to his rapture, but who should drop an unseasonable intimation of preferring one of his anterior bargains to the present!—The last is always his best hit—his "Cynthia of the minute."—Alas! how many a mild Madonna have I known to come in—a Raphael!—keep its ascendancy for a few brief moons—then, after certain intermedial degradations, from the front drawing-room to the back gallery, thence to the dark parlour,—adopted in turn by each of the Carracci, under successive lowering ascriptions of filiation, mildly breaking its fall—consigned to the oblivious ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... and the last Canaanitish city which passed into Israelitish hands was the gift to him of the Pharaoh. The invasion of the Egyptian king prevented Rehoboam from attempting to reconquer the revolted tribes, and in the days of Assyrian ascendancy it was Egypt that was played off against the Assyrian invader by the princes and statesmen of the west. The defeat of Necho at Carchemish handed Palestine over to the Babylonians, and indirectly brought about the destruction of Jerusalem; ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... in whatever shape it appeared, whether under the veil of legitimacy, or skulking in the disguise of State necessity, or presenting the shameless front of usurpation—whether the prescriptive claim of ascendancy, or the career of official authority, or the newly?acquired dominion of a mob,—was the pure object of his detestation and hostility; and this is not a fanciful enumeration of possible ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... those whose battles he fought; thwarted in all his counsels; embarrassed in all his movements; deserted in his most critical enterprises—he continued to mould all those discordant materials, to govern all these warring interests, and merely by the force of his genius, the ascendancy of his integrity, and the immovable firmness and constancy of his nature, to combine them into an indissoluble alliance against the schemes of despotism and universal domination of the most powerful monarch ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... best buildings in the towns for alleged military purposes and immediately sub-let them to private traders. Japan at once re-robed herself with the thin veil of Western morals and conduct which she had rapturously discarded in 1914. While Hun methods were in the ascendancy she adopted the worst of them as her own. She is in everything the imitator par excellence, and therefore ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... the taxpayers. And Wagner was not only known (with absolute certainty) to wish to divert from the pockets of "placemen" funds they had learnt to consider their perquisites, with a view of turning Munich into a musical paradise on earth: it seemed to many that he was gaining such an ascendancy over the feeble mind and will of the king that shortly he would be dictator of the country. That view was not well-founded: Wagner, dreamer though he was, had a strong practical vein in his character: if he saw that one of his dreams could be ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... and hampered the sodomitical hankerings, active or otherwise, of their husbands: Martial, xii, 54: but when the passions and suspicions of both heads of the family were mutually aroused, the eunuchs fanned them into flame and gained the ascendancy in the home. They even went so far as to marry: Martial, xi, 82, and ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... the Dorians of Peloponnesus, we find, in early historical times, that Sparta was gradually acquiring an ascendancy over the other Dorian states, and extending her dominions throughout the southern portion of the peninsula. This result was greatly aided by her geographical position. On a table-land environed by hills, and with arduous descents to ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... my dear?' Lady Pomona's voice was not gracious, as she was free from that fear of her daughter's ascendancy which had ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... the ascendancy, for God knows that I am at the nadir just at present." He breathed in the sweet freshness which still clung to the morning, and settled his shoulders ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... man and wife. Did not Lemuel Fawe, the old-time rival of Gabriel Druse for the kinship of the Romanys, the claimant whose family had been rulers of the Romanys for generations before the Druses gained ascendancy—did not Fawe, dying, seek to secure for his son by marriage what he had failed to get for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... on a battle. He was thwarted at the outset by his officers, as was wont to be the case. Lee had returned more whimsical than ever, and at the moment was strongly adverse to an attack, and was full of wise saws about building a bridge of gold for the flying enemy. The ascendancy which, as an English officer, he still retained enabled him to get a certain following, and the councils of war which were held compared unfavorably, as Hamilton put it, with the deliberations of midwives. Washington was harassed of ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... of Edwy and Elgiva, and the barbarities which the beautiful queen suffered at the hands of Dunstan, are related with fitting abhorrence by the Khan, who seems to entertain, on all occasions, a special aversion to the ascendancy of the Romish priesthood. The loves of Edgar and Elfrida, and the punishment of the faithless courtier who deceived his sovereign by a false report of the attractions of the lady, are also duly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... been attributed to the jealousy of the men. Admitting this to have been the case, the Chinese must be allowed to be well versed in the management of the sex, to have so far gained the ascendancy over them, as to prevail upon them to adopt a fashion, which required a voluntary relinquishment of one of the greatest pleasures and blessings of life, the faculty of locomotion; and to contrive ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... lbs. the amount of duty upon which was L11,865 4s. 4d. We find this in a paper on the Duties on Foreign Books in the Foreign Quarterly Review, just published; in which the imported old books have obtained a considerable ascendancy over ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various

... year, was an important social and religious occasion. The powers of blight were beginning their ascendancy, yet the future triumph of the powers of growth was not forgotten. Probably Samhain had gathered up into itself other feasts occurring earlier or later. Thus it bears traces of being a harvest festival, the ritual of the earlier harvest feast being transferred to the winter feast, as the Celts ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... witnessed even so much as a traffic-court trial cannot help but realize that "government by law instead of man" is a mere political phrase without meaning in reality. The ascendancy of me-and-mine over you-and-yours runs so deep in the human psyche that abstract idealisms must always take second place where such ascendancy is threatened. Thus we see that the belly-crawler, meek and subservient ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... the ingenuity of Agesilaus, placed himself in the midst of the Greeks, and charging with them gained an easy victory. Having once established an ascendancy over the mind of Nektanebis, Agesilaus now proceeded to use the same trick again with the enemy. By alternately retreating and advancing he led them on until he had enticed them into a place between two deep canals. Here he at once formed his troops on a front equal ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... morning he made pretence of hunting, and turning his horse's head in the direction of Richmond, called on his mistress, when he apologized to and made friends with her. She therefore returned and exercised her old ascendancy over him once more. It is probable his majesty was the more anxious to pacify her, from the fact that she was now far advanced in her third pregnancy; for two months later she gave birth to her second son, who was baptized Henry Fitzroy, and ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... which were welcomed as wonders of the East even by those who did not appreciate the fact that they showed a desire to trade. It was easy soon to find new markets for the rich burghers whose class was in complete ascendancy ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... dilating eye Reveals too much of times gone by; Though varying, indistinct its hue, Oft with his glance the gazer rue, For in it lurks that nameless spell, Which speaks, itself unspeakable, A spirit yet unquelled and high, 840 That claims and keeps ascendancy; And like the bird whose pinions quake, But cannot fly the gazing snake, Will others quail beneath his look, Nor 'scape the glance they scarce can brook. From him the half-affrighted Friar When met alone would fain retire, As if that eye and bitter smile Transferred to others fear and guile: ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... started in 1883, women had been assigned unprecedented recognition as co-operating with men on equal footing for political purposes. It does not promote special measures but lays down for its principle the Maintenance of Religion, of the Estates of the Realm and of the Imperial Ascendancy of the British Empire, thus indicating its Conservative tendency. The Women's Liberal Federation, founded in 1885 to promote liberal principles, endeavours to further special measures. The Women's Liberal ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... offered to every Swedish immigrant, to be ranged among our enemies by the German-admiring aristocrats of Sweden who by birth, training and education are opposed to democracy, who hope, if Germany wins, to gain as great an ascendancy in the government as the Prussian Junkers possess ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... Kent, Sussex, and Wessex in the south; Mercia and East Anglia in the Midlands; Northumbria between the Humber and the Forth. The efforts of every ruler were devoted to the establishment of his personal ascendancy over the whole group. Such a supremacy was obtained by AEthelbert of Kent, the first royal convert to Christianity; by Edwin of Northumbria and his two immediate successors in the seventh century; by Offa of Mercia (757-796); and ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and cock fights; and, with the ascendancy which bodily strength always acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone that admitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving

... developed only by absorbing elements taken from the inexhaustible reserves of the "old civilizations" of which we spoke at the beginning. The Hellenized Orient imposed itself everywhere through its men and its works; it subjected its Latin conquerors to its ascendancy in the same manner as it dominated its Arabian conquerors later when it became the civilizer of Islam. But in no field of thought was its influence, under the empire, so decisive as in religion, because it finally brought about the complete ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... Rise of the Money Power. Ascendancy of the bourgeoisie over the nobility, clergy, and proletariat. Class ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... Assistance; the War in the Highlands suspended Scruples of the Covenanters about taking Arms for King William The Cameronian Regiment raised Edinburgh Castle surrenders Session of Parliament at Edinburgh Ascendancy of the Club Troubles in Athol The War breaks out again in the Highlands Death of Dundee Retreat of Mackay Effect of the Battle of Killiecrankie; the Scottish Parliament adjourned The Highland Army reinforced Skirmish at Saint Johnston's Disorders in the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and ever true that "right is of no sex, and truth of no color." The liberal ideas, ever struggling for utterance and ascendancy under every form of government, are not the exclusive property of any community or nation, but the heritage of mankind, and their victories are ever inspiring. For, as the traveler sometimes ascends the ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... of land were given to favoured individuals in the colony, or to immigrants who came with commendations from the home government. In such a state of matters the people certainly possessed the external form of a free government, but as an opposition party gradually acquired an ascendancy in the lower House of Parliament, they were unable to carry the measures adopted by their majority into operation, in consequence of the systematic opposition of the legislative and executive councils, which were ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... displeased her. It was said also, and by people whose word was not without weight, that the same council of Vienna, which for reasons of state had made no scruple of poisoning the late Queen of Spain (daughter of Monsieur), because she had no children, and because she had, also, too much ascendancy over the heart of her husband; it was said, I say, that this same council had no scruples upon another point. After poisoning the first Queen, it had remarried the King of Spain to a sister of the Empress. She was tall, majestic, not ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... all the family of pain. This opinion he supported in his writings with the force of his eloquence and reason; and still more in conversation, by all those powers of wit, satire, and peculiar humour, which never appeared fully to the public in his works, but which gained him strong ascendancy in private society. During his lifetime, he almost banished wine from the tables of the rich of his acquaintance; and persuaded most of the gentry in his own and the neighbouring counties to become water-drinkers." Here, I doubt, Miss Edgeworth has a little over-rated ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... powers, and Vaudemont reluctantly subscribed to the world's verdict. Yet he had done nothing, he had read but little, he laughed at the world to its face,—and that last was, after all, the main secret of his ascendancy over those who were drawn into his circle. That contempt of the world placed the world at his feet. His sardonic and polished indifference, his professed code that there was no life worth caring ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... had contributed to bring on his country;' (by the way, it is a suspicious circumstance—that Sir William [3] first became sensible that his country was miserable, when he became sensible that he himself was not likely to be again employed; and became fully convinced of it, when his party lost their ascendancy:) 'he was convinced, by fatal experience, that anarchy was a bad step towards a perfect government; that the subversion of every establishment was no safe foundation for a permanent and regular constitution: he found that pretences ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... been detailed of these disputes we may learn that, even at this period, the laureate's wreath was not unmingled with thorns; and that if Dryden still maintained his due ascendancy over the common band of authors, it was not without being occasionally under the necessity of descending into the arena against ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... beginning of the twentieth century. Civilization is about to enter a new era, with new problems to solve, new dangers to confront, new hopes to realize. It is useless to deny the increasing ascendancy of that spirit, which in regard to the problems of the Universe, affirms nothing, denies nothing, but continues its search for solution; it is equally useless to shut our eyes to the influence of this ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... collaborator to consult. In writing, as in compiling, I have been ably assisted by my scholarly friend Mr. Satan; and to this worthy gentleman must be attributed most of the views herein set forth. While the plan of the work is partly my own, its spirit is wholly his; and this illustrates the ascendancy of the creative over the merely imitative mind. Palmam qui meruit ferat-I shall ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... who, visiting its coral shores from time to time, often discuss in wondering amazement how the Indian conjuror performs his tricks. It is also written to uphold the reputation of the Western conjuror against the spurious ascendancy ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson

... first been regarded as a sort of leader. Without saying much, but by being always in the right place at the right time, he had gained an ascendancy over the less courageous, strong and decided men. When the cholera came he was continually called upon to nurse the sick, to bury the dead and ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... d'Enghein, who was then joining the army, on a campaign, and here he found the one love of his life, the Duke's sister, Mdme. de Longueville. This lady, young, beautiful, and accomplished, obtained a great ascendancy over Rochefoucauld, and was the cause of his taking the side of Conde in the subsequent civil war. Rochefoucauld did not stay long with the army. He was badly wounded at the siege of Mardik, and returned from thence to Paris. On recovering from his wounds, the war of the Fronde broke out. This ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld

... and found it hard to reconcile themselves to another period of unemployment. They made no counter-attack that could do any damage. The employers, who were acting energetically under the leadership of the iron industry, enjoyed from the beginning a considerable ascendancy. The "Denmark" factory was kept running, but the trade was on its ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... would more strenuously resist even any step in that direction than I would, unless it were Mr. Gladstone, the author of the famous resolutions. The next sentence goes on to say, "We ask for no ascendancy." Having read that sentence, I think that we must come to the conclusion that these gentlemen are in a better frame of mind than we thought them to be in. I can understand easily that these gentlemen are very sorry and doubtful as to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... earliest historical beginnings to its final extinction in the Middle Ages falls naturally under five periods. These are:—(1) Greece before the Persian warbs; (2) the ascendancy of Athens; (3) the Alexandrian monarchies; (4) Greece under Rome; (5) the Byzantine empire of the East. The authors of epigrams included in this selection are spread over all these periods through a space of about ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... intense partisanship he belonged to the century that includes Swift, Johnson and Goldsmith. He stands alone among famous English authors by reason of his prodigious memory, his wide reading, his oratorical style and his singular ascendancy over the minds of young students. The only writers of modern times who can be classed with him as great personal forces in the development of young minds are Carlyle and Emerson, and of the three Macaulay must be given first place because of a certain dynamic quality in the man ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... to a movement organized by the enemies of Dr. Morse to oust him from his parish in Charlestown. He was a militant fighter for orthodoxy and an uncompromising foe to Unitarianism, which was gradually obtaining the ascendancy in and near Boston. The movement was finally successful, as we shall see later, but they did not go as far from ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... households. The emperor employed freedmen to write letters and administer the finances of the empire as he would have used them to manage his private estate. "Under Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, the imperial freedmen attained their greatest ascendancy. Callistus, Narcissus, and Pallas rose to the rank of great ministers, and, in the reign of Claudius, were practically masters of the world. They accumulated enormous wealth by abusing their power, and making a traffic ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... talent. Aggregations of population offer frequent contact of persons, division of labor, competition between individuals, a better coordination of society for cooperative results, neutralization of physical qualities, and the ascendancy of innovation over the conservative attitude. It is not the mere density of population which is the effective element. It is rather the dynamic density which is productive, that is, the manifestation of ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... 326. This ascendancy of inclinations, however, does not prevent man from being master in his own domain, provided that he knows how to make use of his power. His dominion is that of reason: he has only to prepare himself in good time to resist the passions, and he will be capable ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... by which we solve this accumulation of great problems will depend upon which of these three conceptions will reach the ascendancy amongst our people. ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg

... wife and children, who were unable to speak a word of English. But Torrini's influence on the men in the yard,—especially on the younger hands, who needed quite other influences,—and his intemperate speeches at the trades-union, where he had recently gained a kind of ascendancy by his daring, were producing the ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... that, when the order was given, he, the medico, was to bore six holes in the boat, so that, it sinking under them, they might all be compelled to push forward, with no chance of retreat. And such was the ascendancy of this man over his followers, and such was their awe of him, that not one of them uttered even so much as a murmur, though what he had commanded the surgeon to do pledged them either to victory or to death, with no chance to choose between. Nor did ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... which were four men, paddled off to us and came alongside without showing any signs of apprehension or surprise. I gave them a few beads and they came into the ship. One man, who seemed to have an ascendancy over the others, looked about the ship with some appearance of curiosity, but none of them would venture to go below. They asked for some boiled fresh pork which they saw in a bowl belonging to one of the seaman, and it was given them to eat with boiled plantains. Being told ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh

... Jacobean society was making its way into literature, culminating in the entire disintegration of the time of Charles II., which it is very shallow to lay entirely to the Puritans. There would have been a time of great laxity had Cromwell or the Puritan ascendancy never existed. Beaumont and Fletcher, in their eagerness to please, took no thought of the after-effects of their plays; morality did not enter into their scheme of life. Yet they were not immoral, but merely unmoral. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... whither he was attended by all the free people and convicts at Rose Hill. The services rendered to the public by this person were visible in the cultivation and improvements which appeared at the settlement where he had the direction. He had acquired an ascendancy over the convicts, which he preserved without being hated by them; he knew how to proportion their labour to their ability, and, by an attentive and quiet demeanor, had gained the approbation and countenance of the different officers who had been ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated her for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendancy extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which, a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... of the tenth and most of the eleventh century the Counts of Rennes gained an almost complete ascendancy in Brittany, which began to be broken up into counties and seigneuries in the French manner. In 992 Geoffrey, son of Conan, Count of Rennes, adopted the title of Duke of Brittany. He married a Norman lady of noble family, by whom he had two sons, Alain and Eudo, the younger of whom ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... young men, both had been aspirants for the imperial throne of Germany and Francis had suffered defeat, the latter had assiduously devoted himself to the retributory task of gaining the ascendancy over his successful rival. And now, although the tempering years had assuaged their erstwhile passions and each had professed to eschew war and its violence, might not this temptation prove too great for Francis to resist a last blow at the emperor's prestige? How easy to affect disbelief ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... Doctrine. c. Failed to prevent: Greek revolution and independence (national movement). Separation of Belgium from the Netherlands (national). Revival of liberal demands in various quarters, producing the revolution of 1830 in France and elsewhere. 2. The ascendancy of the bourgeoisie, 1830-1848. a. Industrialism on the continent. b. The bourgeois (capitalist employer) secures political power to advance his interests. Revolution of 1830. Reform bill of 1832. Legislation against labor organizations and for tariffs favoring trade. c. ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... compiled a book of Burke's most telling utterances on Ireland and her woes. Those utterances, as he said, "Show at work all the causes which have brought Ireland to its present state—the tyranny of the grantees of confiscation; of the English garrison; Protestant ascendancy; the reliance of the English Government upon this ascendancy and its instruments as their means of government; the yielding to menaces of danger and insurrection what was never yielded to considerations of equity and reason; the recurrence to the old perversity ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell

... made an exemplary prisoner, so exemplary that, owing to her good conduct and a certain ascendancy she exercised over her fellow-prisoners, she was made forewoman of one of the workshops. Whilst holding this position she had the honour of receiving, among those entrusted to her charge, another Gabrielle, murderess, ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... attempted to prevent him by force as he was advancing toward the cave, he was struck with a club and slain, while vainly calling upon the shepherds to assist him. At that time Evander, who was an exile from the Peloponnesus, governed the country more by his personal ascendancy than by absolute sway. He was a man held in reverence on account of the wonderful art of writing, an entirely new discovery to men ignorant of accomplishments,[7] and still more revered on account of the supposed divinity of his mother Carmenta, whom those peoples had marvelled at as a prophetess ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... chief of Cabool owed his success to Futteh Khan, the chief of the great family of Barukzyes, and the most powerful of the Affghan nobles. Futteh Khan, in fact, governed the kingdom under the designation of vizier, while Mahmood abandoned himself to debauchery. If Mahmood, however, submitted to the ascendancy of his able minister, not so did his son, the prince Kamrau. By his orders Futteh Khan was seized at Herat and deprived of his eyesight; and a few months afterwards the unhappy vizier was literally hacked to pieces by the courtiers of Mahmood, in the presence of that monarch. In the days of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... ascendancy rests with those who rule with simplicity. They soften by the spirit the harshness of the fact. Their authority is not in shoulder-straps, titles or disciplinary measures. They make use of neither ferule nor threats, yet ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner

... became the permanent state capital. The election of Martin Van Buren as governor in 1828 marked the beginning of the long ascendancy in the state of the "Albany Regency," a political coterie of Democrats in which Van Buren, W.L. Marcy, Benjamin Franklin Butler and Silas ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous

... she had a curious ascendancy over James Houghton. One would have expected his aesthetic eye to be offended. But no doubt it was her voice: her soft, near, sure voice, which seemed almost like a secret touch upon her hearer. Now many of her hearers disliked being secretly touched, as it ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... no other parting words than such as I might have spoken to any other woman whom I looked on merely as a friend. That she felt any genuine love for me I never have believed, and never shall: but I had that practical ability, that firmness of will, that obvious personal ascendancy over most of those with whom I came in contact, which extorts the respect and admiration of women of all characters, and even of women of no character at all. As far as her senses, her instincts, and her ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... to have gradually gained ascendancy in her mind, and her prevalent desire became, to be a Christian upon Christ's own terms. She felt herself as one who had been forgiven much, and therefore loved much,—striving to be no more conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of her mind. Her conscience became ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous

... establishment of territorial governments under the control of Congress. These states should, he said, "never be recognized as capable of acting in the Union... until the Constitution shall have been so amended as to make it what the makers intended, and so as to secure perpetual ascendancy to ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... joy rather than sorrow over the sin and humiliation of his father, should always be a servile race. Out of these descendants of Ham arose the Canaanites, the Babylonians and the Egyptians who developed the three great civilizations of antiquity. Their ascendancy, however, soon passed. The Canaanites were subdued by the Israelites; the Cushites of Chaldea were absorbed by Semitic conquerors and Carthage of the Phoenicians fell before her foes. The sons of Cush, ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... infantry, of whom 9000 were hired sepoys under a Muhammadan leader. The Marathas were at their best in attacking the slow-moving and effeminate Mughal armies, while during their period of national ascendancy under the Peshwa there was no strong military power in India which could oppose their forays. When they were by the skill of their opponents at length brought to a set battle, their fighting qualities usually proved to be distinctly poor. At Panipat ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... and dispersed at my eye, and I went home in triumph, escorted by my friend, and some well-meaning young Christians, who, however, had not learned to deport themselves with soberness and humility. But my ascendancy over my enemies was great indeed; for wherever I appeared I was hailed with approbation, and, wherever my guilty brother made his appearance, he was hooted and held in derision, till he was forced to hide his disgraceful head, and appear ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... active as circumstances required, foremost in every exertion, and issuing his orders amid the gale trumpet-tongued. His manner, so full of animation, resolution and exertion, probably prevented despair from getting the ascendancy at that important moment. He was nobly sustained by both his mates: and three or four of the older seamen now showed themselves men to be relied ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... the ascendancy, which Montoni had acquired over Madame Cheron, as well as the increasing frequency of his visits; and her own opinion of this Italian was confirmed by that of Valancourt, who had always expressed a dislike of him. As she was, one morning, sitting at work in the pavilion, enjoying the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... and he continued his reply as if he were scarcely aware of his own words. It was as if a voice from the past was speaking through his lips. The words came with no conscious effort; rather were they the dread outpourings of an inherent fester in his soul. His father's blood was in the full ascendancy at last. ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... Abram until his supreme trial seems principally to have been repeated covenants with God, and the promises held out of the future greatness of his descendants. The greatness of the Israelitish nation, however, was not to be in political ascendancy, nor in great attainments in the arts and sciences, nor in cities and fortresses and chariots and horses, nor in that outward splendor which would attract the gaze of the world, and thus provoke conquests and political ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... the republic resolves is always resolved wisely. Behold me ready to lay down my life for the preservation of my country." Pisani was appointed generalissimo, and, by his exertions, in conjunction with those of Carlo Zeno, the Venetians soon recovered the ascendancy ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... present service for the Fifth of November; first, from the powder plot, and next, from popery coming in upon the country in a manner more insidious, but not less dangerous in 1688, when the king on the throne was a papist, and all possible means were used to establish the papal ascendancy. ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury

... Arethusa—Aunt Mary's two nieces—were not uncommonly mercenary; but about three weeks after the new arrival they became seriously troubled over the ascendancy that she appeared to be gaining over the mind of their aunt. Lucinda's duties had included for many years the writing of a weekly letter which contained formal advices of the general state of affairs, and after Janice's ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... social and intellectual, but in the political life of the century. The traditions of her salon lingered in those which followed, modified by the changes that time and personal taste always bring. Mme. du Chatelet was more learned, but she lacked the tact and charm which give wide personal ascendancy. Her influence was largely individual, and her books have been mostly forgotten. These women were alike defiant of morality, but taken all in all, the character of Mme. Chatelet has more redeeming points, though little respect can be accorded to either. With the wily intellect of a Talleyrand, Mme. ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... if the same thought had come to Judge Garford. But if the aged jurist had made any comparisons, they were not reflected in his benign features. A lifetime among scenes of turbulence, and watching justice gain steady ascendancy over frontier lawlessness, had made the judge indifferent to the manifestations of ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... intellectual and clog every nobler faculty? What will it suffice that to-day I feel myself controlled by good motives, and swayed by just principles, and possessed of a well-balanced character, since in some evil hour, influences wholly unexpected may gain the ascendancy, and I be so unlike my present self that pitying friends can only wonder and whisper, How changed! and enemies shall glory in my fall. No. It is vain to strive after certainty in this world of change and vicissitude, since none of us can tell what himself shall be on the morrow. ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... County is part, and in the Herkimer County meeting. I hail this as an auspicious event. Names in politics as well as science are matters of substance, and a bad name in public is as injurious to success as a bad name in private life. The inferences I draw from the signs of the times are: First, the ascendancy of our party from the collisions of parties. In proportion as they quarrel with each other they will draw closer to us. The last hate being the most violent will supersede the former antipathy. Second, the old names as well ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... talents would, he flattered himself, secure to him that ascendancy of which he was so ambitious. "Am I your manager, or not?" was now his question. "I scorn to take advantage of a hasty moment; but since last night you have had time to consider. If you desire me to be your manager, you shall see what a theatre I ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... only one of several current among the Peruvian Indians, and probably not the one most generally received. Another legend speaks of certain white and bearded men, who, advancing from the shores of Lake Titicaca, established an ascendancy over the natives, and imparted to them the blessings of civilization. It may remind us of the tradition existing among the Aztecs in respect to Quetzalcoatl, the good deity, who with a similar garb ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... look it, but you are trembling with apprehension of the delicately anointed barb with which Madame Sarah. Grand will presently transfix you [laughter]; you must feel that we shall not very long be permitted even to mumble the barren epigrams of a vanished ascendancy."] ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... Christ's Church. So far were they from tending to realize the promises of prophecy, to perfect Christ's body up to the measure of the stature of Christ's own fulness, that Christ's Church declined during their ascendancy more and more;—she fell alike from truth and from holiness; and these doctrines, if they did not cause the evil, were at least quite unable to restrain it. For, in whatever points the fifteenth century ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... authority in favour of Monsieur de Blacas. And how much more painful did our consternation become, when we were able to understand the views and projects of this Mayor of the palace, and when we ascertained the baneful extent of his ascendancy. ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... introduced the second period, and made important changes. First of all, in the great convulsion of European thought, the ascendancy of Aristotle was shaken. It is enough to mention two incidents in the downfall of the mighty Stagyrite. One was the attack on him by the renowned Peter Rainus, in the University of Paris. Our countryman, Andrew Melville, attended Ramus's Lectures, and became the means of introducing ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... declared itself in the very first years of settlement, before they had encountered the savage antagonism of the aborigines, and while they still had only the privations incident to pioneer life; or it may have been after the long struggle for ascendancy and possession was over, and they could settle down in hard-won homes. Upon neighboring or contiguous farms there they gradually drew together the threads of memory concerning former peaceful occupations, and wove them once more ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler

... this event, and the men from the Caroline Islands, thanks to their more extended knowledge, soon acquired a certain ascendancy over their hosts. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... the brave War-Ruler was gained; the council determined to give battle; and such was the ascendancy and military eminence of Miltiades, that his brother-generals, one and all, gave up their days of command to him, and cheerfully acted under his orders. Fearful, however, of creating any jealousy, and of so failing to obtain the co-operation of all parts of ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... suspected the truth. A secret presentiment told her that it was Martial de Sairmeuse who had shaken off his wonted apathy, and was working these changes and using and abusing his ascendancy over ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... and will of King Charles his ascendancy became even greater than it had been over that of King James; and it were easy to show that the acts of George Villiers' life supplied the main planks of that scaffold in Whitehall whereupon Charles Stuart came to lose his head. Charles was indeed a martyr; a martyr chiefly to the ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... when Cromwell had gained ascendancy in England and over the greater portion of the Channel Islands, there lived in Guernsey, at the Bay of Moulin Huet, a miller of the name of Pierre Moullin. Unlike his class generally, he was a very morose man, hard in his dealings with the poor around him, ...
— Legend of Moulin Huet • Lizzie A. Freeth

... mind. The serenity of his countenance, and majestic gracefulness of his deportment impart a strong impression of that dignity and grandeur which are peculiar characteristics; and no one can stand in his presence without feeling the ascendancy of his mind, and associating with his countenance the idea of wisdom, philanthropy, magnanimity, and patriotism. There is a fine symmetry in the features of his face indicative of a benign and dignified spirit. His nose is straight, and his eyes ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden

... the first girl of her own age that Joan had ever seen. Joan went in terror of her and Maud knew this and enjoyed her ascendancy over an untamed creature twice her size. There was the crack of a lion-tamer's whip in the tone of her instructions. That was after a day or two. At first Maud had been horribly afraid of Joan. "A wild thing like her, livin' off ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... dominant religion of Western Asia from the time of Cyrus (550 B.C.) to the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great. Under the Macedonian monarchy the doctrines of Zoroaster appear to have been considerably corrupted by the introduction of foreign opinions, but they afterwards recovered their ascendancy. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... of attention as showing the atmosphere of suspicious hostility with which the Orange faction in Ireland surrounds every act even of Civil Servants and Executive Officers who are not as active supporters of the ascendancy ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... His ascendancy over his fellow-conspirators seems to have been complete. After the surrender of Lee, in an access of malice and rage akin to madness he called them together and assigned each his part in the new crime which had risen in his mind out of the abandoned abduction ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... her long ascendancy. Its influence was not to be shaken off in a moment. In all his life he had never disobeyed her. Besides, with it all, he loved her more deeply and understandingly than most sons love their mothers. He realized that, since she would have it so, his choice ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... advances in this culture, is evident from the fact that the Coronation robe of Charles II., in 1660, was made of silk reeled in that colony, and even so late as 1730, three hundred pounds of the raw material were exported from Virginia. Tobacco, however, soon assumed and maintained the ascendancy, to the exclusion of this ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... his secret to us thus was characteristic of the "Tootai Owrees," or contemners of the missionaries among the natives; who, presuming that all foreigners are opposed to the ascendancy of the missionaries, take pleasure in making them confidants, whenever the enactments of their rulers ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... make choice between your beloved tomes! Indeed I am with you whole-heartedly, for there are two books, two priceless gems, rescued (the one from Austria, the other France) after years of patient search, two books which ever strive for the ascendancy in my bibliophilic affections. Far from me be it to make distinction between them. Granted, however, that you have made up your mind as to the identity of the treasure, do you not wish to possess other equally choice works of the same class, ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... difficulty enough [said the article in the Jupiter], that the Church of England maintains at the present moment that ascendancy among the religious sects of this country which it so loudly claims. And perhaps it is rather from an old-fashioned and time-honoured affection for its standing than from any intrinsic merits of its own that some such general acknowledgement of its ascendancy ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... to do against a man served by such allies, a man who, by the sheer ascendancy of his authority, inspired a woman with such a stock of ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... being moved from his former comfortable position, he stammered something about a "breach of hospitality;" but, when Rhodopis was about to give him her hand at parting, the wine gained the ascendancy and he exclaimed, "By Hercules, Rhodopis, you get rid of us as if we were troublesome creditors. It is not my custom to leave a supper so long as I can stand, still less to be turned out of doors like a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... my feeling when I beheld the Countess? Fleuriot told me all that he knew of the piteous story. I took the poor fellow with my niece into Auvergne, and there I had the misfortune to lose him. He had some ascendancy over Mme. de Vandieres. He alone succeeded in persuading her to wear clothes; and in those days her one word of human speech—Farewell—she seldom uttered. Fleuriot set himself to the task of awakening certain associations; but there he ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac

... ascendancy of foresight, prudence, and order in society, and the first ideas of advantageous national intercourse. Their body is therefore composed of the most intelligent and temperate natures of the time,—uniting themselves, not directly for the purpose ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin

... changeful charm of this radiant girl, with the flashing gray eyes and piquant features, and all those artless caprices of manner which made her arch loveliness irresistible? Diana's heart grew sick and cold as she watched these two day by day, and saw the innocent school-girl's ascendancy over the adventurer. The attributes which made Charlotte charming were just those very attributes which Valentine Hawkehurst had been least accustomed to discover in the womankind he had hitherto encountered. He ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... conditions of their lives. Taking little for granted they have sought to know the ground they stand on, and the road they travel, and the reason why. Over them, therefore, the historian has obtained an increasing ascendancy 17. The law of stability was overcome by the power of ideas, constantly varied and rapidly renewed 18; ideas that give life and motion, that take wing and traverse seas and frontiers, making it futile to pursue the consecutive ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... and was washing his wounds, stood up and said, "It's my fault, sir—not Figs's—not Dobbin's. I was bullying a little boy; and he served me right." By which magnanimous speech he not only saved his conqueror a whipping, but got back all his ascendancy over the boys which his defeat had nearly ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... troops to build huts in the woods for sheltering themselves from the inclemency of the weather. And it is perhaps one of the most striking traits in General Washington's character that he possessed the faculty of gaining such an ascendancy over his raw and undisciplined followers, most of whom were destitute of proper winter clothing and otherwise unprovided with necessaries, as to be able to prevail upon so many of them to remain with him during the winter ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing



Words linked to "Ascendancy" :   dominance, monopoly, ascend, despotism, prepotency, control, mastery, domination, ascendant, predominance, regulation, absolutism, condition, ascendency, dominion, status, predomination, supremacy, ascendent, tyranny, rule



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