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r subject; meditation; musing; study. In contemplation of created things, By steps we may ascend to God. Milton. Contemplation is keeping the idea which is brought into the mind for some time actually in view. Locke.

ropositions. Contrary motion (Mus.), the progression of parts in opposite directions, one ascending, the other descending.

at night eats off young plants of cabbage, corn, etc., usually at the ground. Some kinds ascend fruit trees and eat off the flower buds. During the day, they conceal themselves in the earth. The common cutworms are the larvæ of various species of Agrotis and related genera of noctuid moths.

ascent; the same slope, considered as descending, being a declivity, which, considered as ascending, is an acclivity.

ling, flowing, walking, etc.; to plunge; to fall; to incline downward; -- the opposite of ascend. The rain descended, and the floods came. Matt. vii. 25. We will here descend to matters of later date. Fuller.

One who descends, as offspring, however remotely; -- correlative to ancestor or ascendant. Our first parents and their descendants. Hale. The descendant of so many kings and emperors. Burke.

Turning from the left to the right, in the ascending line, as in the spiral inclination of the stem of the common morning-glóry.

Predominance; ascendency; authority.

Superior prominence; predominance; ascendency. Objects placed foremost ought . . . have dominion over things confused and transient. Dryden.

Belonging to that space of time in which the moon performs one revolution, from ascending node to ascending node. See Dragon's head, under Dragon. [Obs.] "Dracontic month." Crabb.

called by the ancients the orthography. Angle of elevation (Geodesy), the angle which an ascending line makes with a horizontal plane. -- Elevation of the host (R. C. Ch.), that part of the Mass in which the priest raises the host above his head for the people to adore.

A stairway or incline arranged like an endless belt so that the steps or treads ascend or descend continuously, and one stepping upon it is carried up or down; -- a trade term.

e beginning of darkness or night; properly, the decline of the day, or of the sum. In the ascending scale Of heaven, the stars that usher evening rose. Milton.

Exhalation; volatile matter (esp. noxious vapor or smoke) ascending in a dense body; smoke; vapor; reek; as, the fumes of tobacco. The fumes of new shorn hay. T. Warton. The fumes of undigested wine. Dryden.

A diatonic ascending or descending succession of chords.

A graded ascending, descending, or level portion of a road; a gradient.

sponsory after the epistle, in the Mass, which was sung on the steps, or while the deacon ascended the steps.

ircular or spiral motion; motion about an axis; rotation; revolution. The gyrations of an ascending balloon. De Quincey. If a burning coal be nimbly moved round in a circle, with gyrations continually repeated, the whole circle will appear like fire. Sir I. Newton.

ion; a circuit. Quick and more quick he spins in giddy gyres. Dryden. Still expanding and ascending gyres. Mrs. Browning.

dle toe toothed. The common European heron (Ardea cinerea) is remarkable for its directly ascending flight, and was formerly hunted with the larger falcons.