Wiktionary

aspirate

English

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WOTD – 4 November 2010

Etymology

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Learned borrowing from Latin aspīrātus.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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aspirate (plural aspirates)

  1. (linguistics) The puff of air accompanying the release of a plosive or fricative consonant.
  2. (linguistics) A sound produced by such a puff of air.
    • 1972, Leonard R. Palmer, Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics, page 50:
      We now come to the so-called aspirate [h], which must be also classified as a fricative consonant.
  3. A mark of aspiration (ʽ) used in Greek; the asper, or rough breathing.
    • a. 1742, Richard Bentley, letter to Dr. Mead
      But we must correct then twenty authors who have it in the compound ἀπηθεῖν and ἀπήθημα ; and not (as the aspirate would require it) ἀφηθεῖν and αφήθημα
  4. A sample of fluid, tissue, or other substance that is withdrawn via aspiration (usually through a hollow needle) from a body cavity, cyst, or tumor.

Translations

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Verb

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aspirate (third-person singular simple present aspirates, present participle aspirating, simple past and past participle aspirated)

  1. (transitive) To remove a liquid or gas by means of suction.
    • 2003, Miep H. Helfrich et al., editors, Bone Research Protocols, page 430:
      Scrape cells using a cell scraper and aspirate the resulting slurry into a 2.0-mL Eppendorf tube.
  2. (transitive) To inhale so as to draw something other than air into one's lungs.
  3. (transitive, intransitive, linguistics) To produce an audible puff of breath, especially following a consonant, such as the letter "h" at the beginning of house or hat in standard English.
    • 1887, James Frederick Hodgetts, Greater England, page 33:
      There is no doubt that the uncertainty about the letter H, which much defaces English in some classes of the community, is due entirely to Norman influence, for Frenchmen could not aspirate. Three words—hour, honor, heir, with compounds of them such as hourly, honourable, heirship, and the like, are quite enough to puzzle people who find H sometimes sounded, sometimes not.

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Adjective

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aspirate (comparative more aspirate, superlative most aspirate)

  1. Synonym of aspirated.
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Translations

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See also

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Anagrams

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Italian

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Etymology 1

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Verb

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aspirate

  1. inflection of aspirare:
    1. second-person plural present indicative
    2. second-person plural imperative

Etymology 2

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Participle

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aspirate f pl

  1. feminine plural of aspirato

Anagrams

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Latin

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Verb

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aspīrāte

  1. second-person plural present active imperative of aspīrō

Spanish

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Verb

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aspirate

  1. second-person singular voseo imperative of aspirar combined with te
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