Employers are, for want of a better word, in the ascendancy.

The new regime is bedding down and in the ascendancy.

Apparently, a week Japan was laughable; but a strong Japan was immediately transformed into the prime example of a "Yellow Peril". Might Japan forever be stuck in a kind of no man's land between East and West, not allowed to assimilate into the international order of the Western nations as an equal, forever grouped with the countries of the East among which she felt herself superior, and respected fully by neither group?

The way they've been playing over the last few years, it's clear they're a team on the ascendancy. They have some great young players and they will shine in the next few years.

Being dignified in old age is proof of ascendancy and of inner resilience.

Words have a genealogy and it's easier to trace the evolution of a single word than the evolution of a language.