different between ascendancy vs authority

English

Alternative forms

• ascendency

Etymology

ascend +? -ancy or ascendant +? -cy

Noun

ascendancy (countable and uncountable, plural ascendancies)

1. The process or period of one's ascent

2. Supremacy; dominant control; the quality of being in the ascendant

   Synonym: superiority
3. (historical, Ireland) A class of Protestant landowners and professionals that dominated political and social life in Ireland up to the early 20th century
   • 1975, Terry Eagleton, New Left Review:

     [W. B. Yeats] belonged not to the ascendancy class but to the protestant bourgeoisie.

Derived terms

• ascendance

Related terms

• ascendant

Translations

Anagrams

• candy canes

English

Alternative forms

• authourity, authoritie, autority, auctoritie (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English auctorite, autorite (“authority, book or quotation that settles an argument”), from Old French auctorité, from Latin stem of auct?rit?s (“invention, advice, opinion, influence, command”), from auctor (“master, leader, author”). For the presence of the h, compare the etymology of author.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /???????ti/, /???????ti/
• (US) IPA^(key): /??????ti/, /??????ti/
• (obsolete) IPA^(key): /???t???ti/
• Hyphenation: au?thor?i?ty
• Rhymes: -???ti

Noun

authority (countable and uncountable, plural authorities)

1. (uncountable) The power to enforce rules or give orders.
   • 1883, Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood Chapter V

     But in the meantime Robin Hood and his band lived quietly in Sherwood Forest, without showing their faces abroad, for Robin knew that it would not be wise for him to be seen in the neighborhood of Nottingham, those in authority being very wroth with him.

2. (used in singular or plural form) Persons in command; specifically, government.
3. (countable) A person accepted as a source of reliable information on a subject.
   • 1930 September 18, Albert Einstein, as quoted in Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel (1988) by Banesh Hoffman

     To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an authority myself.

4. Government-owned agency which runs a revenue-generating activity.

   New York Port Authority

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

• have something on good authority

References

• authority at OneLook Dictionary Search
• authority in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• authority in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.