noun. Governing or controlling influence; the state that exists when one person or group has power over another; domination; power.

noun. Alternative spelling of ascendancy.

noun. the state that exists when one person or group has power over another

"Protestant ascendency means nothing less than an influence obtained by virtue, by love, or even by artifice and seduction, -- full as little an influence derived from the means by which ministers have obtained an influence which might be called, without straining, an _ascendency_, in public assemblies in England, that is, by a liberal distribution of places and pensions, and other graces of government."

condition  status  

absolutism  ascendant  ascendent  despotism  domination  

ascendancy  dependency  tendency  

aggrandizement  allegiance  ascendancy  decadence  despotism  

ascendance  ascendence  authority  control  dominance