INSPIRATION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Inspiration

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/ˌɪnspərˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Inspiration n.

1.

The act of inspiring or breathing in; breath; specif. (Physiol.), the drawing of air into the lungs, accomplished in mammals by elevation of the chest walls and flattening of the diaphragm; the opposite of expiration.

2.

The act or power of exercising an elevating or stimulating influence upon the intellect or emotions; the result of such influence which quickens or stimulates; as, the inspiration of occasion, of art, etc. "Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good inspirations."

3.

(Theol.) A supernatural divine influence on the prophets, apostles, or sacred writers, by which they were qualified to communicate moral or religious truth with authority; a supernatural influence which qualifies men to receive and communicate divine truth; also, the truth communicated. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." "The age which we now live in is not an age of inspiration and impulses."

Plenary inspiration (Theol.), that kind of inspiration which excludes all defect in the utterance of the inspired message.

Verbal inspiration (Theol.), that kind of inspiration which extends to the very words and forms of expression of the divine message.

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Etymology of 'Inspiration'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Inspiration" Quotes from Famous Books

... enchanted region: In elegance of thinking and fertility of imagination, few of our English authors have approached him, and no writers have such power as he to awake the spirit of poetry in others. Cowley owns that he derived inspiration from him; and I have heard the celebrated Mr. James Thomson, the author of the Seasons, and justly esteemed one of our best descriptive poets, say, that he formed himself upon Spenser; and how closely he pursued the model, and how nobly he has imitated him, whoever reads his Castle of Indolence ...

— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... short story our country has known found his inspiration and produced his best work in California. It is now nearly forty years since "The Luck of Roaring Camp" appeared, and a line of successors, more or less worthy, have been following along the trail ...

— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes

... irreverent. You must continually bear in mind the fact that he didn't know the meaning of the word; that he knew nothing about the Bible, nor dreamed that the words which so delighted him were those of inspiration, sounding down through the ages for the peace and ...

— Three People • Pansy

... historian enshrines in his work the labours of all the rest. Yet there are necessarily some men whose work stands out as being more immediately seizable than that of others; in the period of whose care the lamp of inspiration has seemed to burn more brightly. In a matter of this kind I cannot pretend to be a judge, but only to state my own experience and indebtedness; and in my work I have been chiefly helped by Las Casas, indirectly of course by Ferdinand Columbus, Herrera, Oviedo, Bernaldez, Navarrete, Asensio, ...

— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... his strings as if by inspiration and after a breathless pause of admiration among the audience, was received with a clamour of applause, which seemed to show that the name and tendency, as well as the execution of the tune, was in the highest degree acceptable to all the ...

— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

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