Library / English Dictionary

ASPIRE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Have an ambitious plan or a lofty goal

Synonyms:

aim; aspire; draw a bead on; shoot for

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "aspire" is one way to...):

be after; plan (have the will and intention to carry out some action)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "aspire"):

overshoot (aim too high)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s to INFINITIVE

Sentence example:

They aspire to move

Derivation:

aspirant (an ambitious and aspiring young person)

aspirant (desiring or striving for recognition or advancement)

aspiration (a will to succeed)

aspiration (a cherished desire)

aspirer (an ambitious and aspiring young person)

Credits

 Context examples: 

One does not think of extent here; and between ourselves, till I came to Mansfield, I had not imagined a country parson ever aspired to a shrubbery, or anything of the kind.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

At the same time, nobody could wonder if Mr. Elton should have aspired—Miss Woodhouse lets me chatter on, so good-humouredly.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Well, really, when I consider that she has turned her back—I will not say upon me, but upon so much that many have aspired to without success—I can hardly explain it in any other fashion.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was impelled to suggest Locksley Hall, and would have done so, had not his vision gripped him again and left him staring at her, the female of his kind, who, out of the primordial ferment, creeping and crawling up the vast ladder of life for a thousand thousand centuries, had emerged on the topmost rung, having become one Ruth, pure, and fair, and divine, and with power to make him know love, and to aspire toward purity, and to desire to taste divinity—him, Martin Eden, who, too, had come up in some amazing fashion from out of the ruck and the mire and the countless mistakes and abortions of unending creation.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I begged him to excuse me, and get some other partner—but no, not he; after aspiring to my hand, there was nobody else in the room he could bear to think of; and it was not that he wanted merely to dance, he wanted to be with me.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

He made me observe, that among the Houyhnhnms, the white, the sorrel, and the iron-gray, were not so exactly shaped as the bay, the dapple-gray, and the black; nor born with equal talents of mind, or a capacity to improve them; and therefore continued always in the condition of servants, without ever aspiring to match out of their own race, which in that country would be reckoned monstrous and unnatural.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

If you had made bad taste your enemy, the world of fashion would willingly have looked upon you as an arbiter by virtue of your family traditions, and you might without a struggle have stepped into the position to which this young upstart Brummell aspires.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The inhabitants of Port Middlebay may at least aspire to watch it, with delight, with entertainment, with instruction!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This year it was to be a plantation of sun flowers, the seeds of which cheerful and aspiring plant were to feed Aunt Cockle-top and her family of chicks.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Literally, he lived only to aspire—after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)