- rise
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Analogous words: *appear, emerge, loomAntonyms: abate (sense 3)Contrasted words: ebb, subside, wane (see ABATE)2 Rise, arise, ascend, mount, soar, tower, rocket, levitate, surge are comparable when they mean to move or come up from a lower to a higher level.Rise is the comprehensive term interchangeable with all the others, but often at a sacrifice of explicitness or picturesqueness. Rise is idiomatic, and therefore the preferred word, when used:(1) in reference to persons or sometimes animals that get up from a recumbent position (as in bed or after a fall) or from a sitting or kneeling position{
rise every morning at six
}{the injured horse was unable to rise
}{the audience rose when the national anthem was sung
}or (2) in reference to things that give the impression of coming up into view{the sun rises at 5:30
}or to an object that seems to lift itself up{the hills rise in the distance
}or (3) in reference to fluid (as water) under the influence of some natural force that sends it upward{the river rises regularly each spring
}{the mercury is rising
}or to any natural phenomenon indicated by such rising of water or other fluid{the tide rises early tonight
}{the temperature is rising
}The word may be used more widely than these instances indicate, but in these and in closely related extensions and metaphoric applications rise is specifically necessary{for the first two weeks, or three ... the work rose about him like a tide— Mary Austin
}{now he felt his mother counting the week's money, and her wrath rising—D. H. Lawrence
}{felt the color rising in her face— Sedgwick
}Arise (see also SPRING) is narrower in its range of application than rise and in most uses is felt to be rhetorical or poetic excepting perhaps the senses of to get up in the morning after a night's sleep or to rise from the grave{arise, arise; awake the snorting citizens with the bell— Shak.
}{the temple rends, the rocks burst, the dead arise— Steele
}Ascend and mount (see also ASCEND 2) carry a stronger suggestion of continuous or progressive upward movement and of climbing than rise and may therefore be used in distinction from the latter word; thus, the sun rises at dawn, but it ascends from dawn to noon; smoke rises from a fire and ascends to the treetops; a lark rises from the ground and mounts to the skies; a scientist's hopes rise at the first indication of his success and mount as one experiment after another turns out as expected{the third day he rose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven— Apostles' Creed: Book of Common Prayer
}Soar even in metaphoric use suggests the straight upward flight of a bird that mounts on rising currents without flapping of wings; it therefore usually connotes continuous, often swift, ascent into high altitudes especially intellectually, spiritually, or aesthetically{[the skylark] singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest— Shelley
}{up from the eastern sea soars the delightful day— Housman
}{young soaring imaginations— John Reed
}{the soaring melody of the rondo in the Waldstein sonata is Beethoven's . . . transfiguration of the air of a ribald folk song— Lowes
}Tower is used more often in reference to things that attain conspicuous height through growth or thrusting upward, or building than in reference to things that actually move upward; it also frequently connotes extension to a height beyond that of such comparable neighboring objects as buildings, trees, mountains, or, when eminence is suggested, persons{the Empire State Building towers above New York City
}{full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail— Kipling
}{this towering but erratic genius . . . combined in his tempestuous character so many of the best and the worst qualities— Shirer
}When the word does imply movement upward, it usually evokes a picture of something shooting up so as to suggest a tower or steeple{the nimble flames towered, nodded, and swooped through the surrounding air— Hardy
}Rocket suggests the inordinately swift ascent of a projectile; it is used chiefly with reference to things that rise with extraordinary rapidity or wildly and uncontrollably (as under the impetus of events){prices have rocketed sky-high— Kent
}{cock pheasants rocket from the misty spinneys— Glover
}{Indian pride was reawakened; Indian hopes rocketed—J. M. Brown
}Levitate implies a rising or floating in or as if in air that suggests the intervention of antigravity; the term connotes actual or induced lightness or buoyancy and ease of movement{a 1/2-in. niobium sphere levitated in a liquid helium bath— J. L. Taylor
}{we are levitated between acceptance and disbelief— O'Faolain
}{dwellings . . . levitated by his imagination into new structural creations— Flanner
}The word is sometimes specifically associated with supra-normal and especially spiritualistic practices{the levitation of a table at a séance
}and with illusory risings{it is asserted that a man or a woman levitated to the ceiling, floated about there, and finally sailed out by the window— T. H. Huxley
}Surge suggests the upward heaving or spurting of waves. It is used often with up, in reference to emotions and thoughts that rise powerfully from the depths of subconsciousness{strong emotions surged through him as he strode on— Rolvaag
}{things half- guessed, obscurely felt, surged up from unsuspected depths in her— Wharton
}Quite as often, usually with an adverb of direction, it suggests a rolling movement comparable to that of oncoming waves{the troops surged forward
}{traffic surging past
}Antonyms: decline: set (as the sun)rise n *beginning, genesis, initiationAnalogous words: *origin, source, inception, root, provenance, provenience: derivation, origination (see corresponding verbs at SPRING)Antonyms: fall
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
