ASPIRATE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Aspirate

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/ˈæspərˌeɪt/ Listen

noun

Aspirate n.

A sound consisting of, or characterized by, a breath like the sound of h; the breathing h or a character representing such a sound; an aspirated sound.

A mark of aspiration used in Greek; the asper, or rough breathing.

An elementary sound produced by the breath alone; a surd, or nonvocal consonant; as, f, th in thin, etc.

verb

Aspirate v. t. (past & past part. aspirated; pres. part. aspirating) To pronounce with a breathing, an aspirate, or an h sound; as, we aspirate the words horse and house; to aspirate a vowel or a liquid consonant.

adjective

Aspirated, Aspirate adj. Pronounced with the h sound or with audible breath. "But yet they are not aspirate, i. e., with such an aspiration as h."

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Etymology of 'Aspirate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Aspirate" Quotes from Famous Books

... illiterate."—Johnson's Life of Swift. "Most commonly, both the pronoun and verb are understood."—Buchanan's Gram., p. viii. "To signify the thick and slender enunciation of tone."—Knight, on the Greek Alph., p. 9. "The difference between a palatial and guttural aspirate is very small."—Ib., p. 12. "Leaving it to waver between the figurative and literal sense."—Jamieson's Rhet., p. 154. "Whatever verb will not admit of both an active and passive signification."—Alex. Murray's ...

— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... of the shibboleths of beliefs non-essentials as well as essentials enter, the former to the latter in the proportion of two to one. It is not surprising, therefore, that Garrison's essentials proved unequal to the test set up by sectarianism, inasmuch as his spiritual life dropped the aspirate of the non-essentials of religious forms ...

— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... that I kept, and now received with authority, my old name; though the clerk prefixed an aspirate to it, and indulged in two syllables only. But the ancient parson knew its meaning, and looked at me with curiosity; yet, being a gentleman of the old school, put never ...

— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... not in all. I found the same difficulty in some cases that the German or the Chinaman finds when he tries to speak French. A Chinaman can no more say Trocadero, for instance, as the Frenchman says it, than he can fly. That peculiar throaty aspirate the Frenchman gives to the first syllable, as though it were spelled trhoque, is utterly beyond the Chinese—and beyond the American, too, whose idea of the tonsillar aspirate leads him to speak of the trochedeero, naturally ...

— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs

... hup, sir," said the butler. Only in moments of intense excitement did Dumber misplace or leave out the aspirate. "You're to come with me at once to Mr. ...

— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

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