(This doesn't stop him from bluffing and, in offering some objections, delighting in the feeling that he is "gaining a greater and greater ascendancy" over the author a staple of literary power games everywhere).
In turn, the party in power would gain greater ascendancy in national politics through patronage and office appointments.
Across Europe, which Trump is touring this week, foreigner-bashing nationalists are riding the greatest ascendancy of their ideas in decades.
For all these reasons, feelings can gain greater ascendancy over facts as time goes on, making us more extreme and more certain in our views.
With these issues gaining greater ascendancy in the corporate world, we saw a need for a short, easy to administer questionnaire that could capture this business critical health status information.
There is always a time-lag in these matters but, as Paul Kennedy argues in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, economic ascendancy is a pre-condition for broader political and cultural influence.
Don Vito ruled and inspired fear mainly by the use of his great qualities and natural ascendancy.
One part of Trump's ascendancy reflects the great political success of Frank's life.
The composer Thomas Dunhill commented that by 1874 it was "the tail-end of the Leipzig ascendancy, when the great traditions of Mendelssohn had already begun to fade".
But on Thursday the old "Ascendancy" songs still sounded great, especially "A Gunshot to the Head of Trepidation," which suddenly — and thrillingly — downshifts from growling chaos to swaggering (and radio-friendly) hard rock.
