Where does “aspire” come from?
Aspire comes from Middle English aspiren, from Old French aspirer, from Latin aspirare, formed from ad- "to" and spirare "to breathe," ultimately from Proto-Indo-European h₂éd meaning "to breathe."
aspire (English): To have a strong desire or ambition to achieve...
Definitions
- To have a strong desire or ambition to achieve...
Ancestry of “aspire”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle English | aspiren | — |
| 2 | Old French | aspirer | — |
| 3 | Latin | aspīrō | to breathe or blow upon |
| 4 | Latin | ad- | to; usually prefixed to verbs, in which cases it... |
| 5 | Latin | īn- | un-, non-, not |
| 6 | Latin | în | in, at, on, upon, from (space) |
| 7 | Latin | en | lookǃ beholdǃ; reallyǃ?; come onǃ |
| 8 | Proto-Italic | en | in |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | h₁én | in |