Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To have a great ambition or ultimate goal; desire strongly: aspired to stardom.
- v. To strive toward an end: aspiring to great knowledge.
- v. To soar.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To breathe to or into.
- To breathe forth or exhale.
- To breathe after; seek with eagerness to attain to; long or try to reach; attempt.
- To mount or soar to; attain.
- To be eagerly desirous; aim ambitiously, especially at something great or noble; be ambitious: followed by an object with to or after, or by an infinitive: as, to aspire to a crown or after immortality.
- To rise up as an exhalation, or as smoke or fire; hence, to mount or ascend; tower up or rise high.
- n. Aspiration; ardent wish or desire.
Wiktionary
- v. To hope or dream; especially to hope or work towards a profession or occupation (followed by to as a preposition or infinitive particle).
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To desire with eagerness; to seek to attain something high or great; to pant; to long; -- followed by
to orafter , and rarely byat - v. To rise; to ascend; to tower; to soar.
- v. To aspire to; to long for; to try to reach; to mount to.
- n. Aspiration.
WordNet 3.0
- v. have an ambitious plan or a lofty goal
Etymologies
- Middle English aspiren, from aspirer, from Latin aspīrāre, to desire; see aspirate.
Examples
“The only good to which it should aspire is the perpetuation of its condition. —”
‘Open For Questions’ Has Some Answers - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com
“Why not, in short, aspire to be a god when the alternative is to be a bum?”
“The greatest reward to which he can aspire is re-election.”
“Brown has heeded Mandy (for now ... possibly) and changed his mantra to 'aspire' - daylight theft of a Tory slogan.”
“To live is to aspire; to cease to aspire is to die.”
“Let us rather regard the dignity and excellency of knowledge and learning in that whereunto man's nature doth most aspire, which is immortality or continuance.”
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
“Love is this thing that we all kind of aspire to receiving and giving, it's the one thing we're all kind of hungry for.”
The Huffington Post: Constantin Bjerke: Rob Ryan's Whimsical Image Making (VIDEO)
“And they realize the standard of Hollywood films is higher and they kind of aspire to that.”
Interview with Slumdog Millionaire Director Danny Boyle | /Film
“How about our kids, teenagers, university students, ourselves -- is this something we want to "aspire" to intellectually or in any other way?”
“And I think it's so inspiring to the people at home who kind of aspire to be like you all.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘aspire’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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Vocab. 6
addict, aspire, bias, blantant, candid, confront, debut, enroll, fluster, impunity, intensify, intimidate and 3 more...
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spires
arcospire, inspire, squinch, perspire, spirea, aspire, suspire, transpire, leptospire, crocket, whorl, helicoid and 10 more...
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The Vampire Spotter's Guide
Even if you know your Nosferatu from your Dracula, you may not have heard of these before. (Thanks to bilby for the list suggestion on Transpire.)
transpire, empire, umpire, expire, perspire, leptospire, conspire, coconspire, pompire, inspire, spire, aspire and 4 more...
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Lesson 6
addict, aspire, bias, blatant, candid, confront, debut, enroll, fluster, impunity, intensify, intimidate and 3 more...
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Vocab6
stint, retort, obnoxious, intimidate, intensify, impunity, fluster, enroll, debut, confront, candid, blatant and 3 more...
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Vocab List lesson 6
addict, aspire, bias, blatant, candid, confront, debut, enroll, fluster, impunity, intensify, intimidate and 3 more...

sionnach The wrath of a snake. (see Cleopatra)
Funeral rites for a donkey. Mar 25, 2009
vanishedone A vampire snake. Mar 25, 2009