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aspiration

Syllabification: (as·pi·ra·tion)
Pronunciation: /ˌaspəˈrāSHən/

Translate aspiration | into French | into German | into Spanish
Definition of aspiration

noun

  • 1 (usually aspirations) a hope or ambition of achieving something:he had nothing tangible to back up his literary aspirations the yawning gulf between aspiration and reality
  • the object of one’s hope or ambition; a goal:fabrics and oriental rugs were my aspirations
  • 2 Medicine the action or process of drawing breath.
  • the action of drawing fluid by suction from a vessel or cavity.
  • 3 Phonetics the action of pronouncing a sound with an exhalation of breath.

Derivatives

aspirational

Pronunciation: /-SHənl/

adjective
aspiration (sense 1).

Origin:

late Middle English (aspiration (sense 3)): from Latin aspiratio(n-), from the verb aspirare (see aspire)

aspiration in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of aspiration in the British & World English dictionary

Nearby words

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