ascending

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• adjective Moving, going, or growing upward.
• adjective Moving or progressing toward a higher level or degree.
• adjective Botany Growing or directing upward from a curved or slanted base, as certain plant stems.

from The Century Dictionary.

• Proceeding from a lower position to a higher; rising; moving upward; figuratively, proceeding from the less to the greater; proceeding from a later to an earlier time; rising from grave to acute.
• In botany, growing upward, as the stem of a plant, which is called the ascending axis.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• adjective Rising; moving upward.
• adjective (Astron.) the increasing latitude of a planet.
• adjective (Geneol.) the line of relationship traced backward or through one's ancestors. One's father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, etc., are in the line direct ascending.
• adjective having, that node of the moon or a planet wherein it passes the ecliptic to proceed northward. It is also called the northern node.
• adjective (Math.) A series in which each term is greater than the preceding.
• adjective signs east of the meridian.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• verb Present participle of ascend.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the act of changing location in an upward direction
• adjective moving or going or growing upward