a place of going up: a slope, mountain pass, or flight of steps by which one climbs
This word names the place or route where the ground rises and a person climbs. It comes from the common verb for going up, and it points not to the act of climbing but to the way itself, the upward stretch of road or the steps that carry you higher.
Most often it labels an incline in open country, and it turns up again and again as part of a place name: the well-known pass "the ascent of Akrabbim," "the ascent of Adummim," "the ascent of the Mount of Olives." These were real, recognizable routes, the way you took to climb from one region up to another, so the word behaves almost like the English "the pass" or "the hill road."
The same word also covers a built ascent, a stairway or flight of steps: the eight steps leading up to a temple gate, or the raised stairs where the Levites stood. Whether the climb is a natural slope or made of cut stone, it is one idea, the way up.
A related feminine noun, מַעֲלָה, narrows in on a single step or degree (a stair-tread, the marks on a sundial, the "Songs of Ascents"), while this word keeps the wider sense of the whole incline or route.