ascending vs descending

ascending

noun
  • An ascent. 

adj
  • Rising or increasing to higher levels, values, or degrees. 

  • That causes a sequence to follow an ascending order. 

  • Sloping or leading upwards. 

descending

noun
  • A descent. 

adj
  • Ordered such that each element is less than or equal to the previous element. 

  • Moving or sloping downwards. 

  • Becoming lower in pitch. 

  • Causing a sequence to follow a descending order. 

How often have the words ascending and descending occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )