Noun

(en noun)

The absolute height of a location, usually measured from sea level.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson

, volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes , there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.}}

A vertical distance.

(geometry) The distance measured perpendicularly from a figure's vertex to the opposite side of the vertex.

(astronomy) The angular distance of a heavenly body above our Earth's horizon.

Height of rank or excellence; superiority.

(Jonathan Swift)

(dated, in the plural) Elevation of spirits; heroics; haughty airs.

* Sir Walter Scott

The man of law began to get into his altitudes .

(Richardson)

Highest point or degree.

* Shakespeare

He is [proud] even to the altitude of his virtue.

Noun

(en noun)

The act of ascending. A motion upwards.

He made a tedious ascent of Mont Blanc.

The way or means by which one ascends.

There is a difficult northern ascent from Malaucene of Mont Ventoux.

An eminence, hill, or high place.

The degree of elevation of an object, or the angle it makes with a horizontal line; inclination; rising grade.

The road has an ascent of 5 degrees.

(typography) The ascender height in a typeface.

An increase, for example in popularity or hierarchy

* 22 March 2012 , Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Games [http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-hunger-games,71293/]

That such a safe adaptation could come of The Hunger Games speaks more to the trilogy’s commercial ascent than the book’s actual content, which is audacious and savvy in its dark calculations.

(Webster 1913)