aspiration

American  

[as-puh-rey-shuhn] / ˌæs pəˈreɪ ʃən /

noun

1. a strong desire, longing, or aim; ambition.

   intellectual aspirations.

   Synonyms:

   craving, yearning

2. a goal or objective that is strongly desired.

   The presidency has been his aspiration since boyhood.

3. the act of aspirating or breathing in.

4. Phonetics.

   1. articulation accompanied by an audible puff of breath, as in the h -sound of how, or of when (hwen), or in the release of initial stops, as in the k -sound of key.

   2. the use of such a speech sound, or aspirate, in pronunciation.

5. Medicine/Medical.

   1. the act of removing a fluid, as pus or serum, from a cavity of the body, by a hollow needle or trocar connected with a suction syringe.

   2. the act of inhaling fluid or a foreign body into the bronchi and lungs, often after vomiting.

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aspiration British  

/ -trɪ, ˈæspɪrətərɪ, -trɪ, ˌæspɪˈreɪʃən, əˈspaɪrətərɪ /

noun

1. strong desire to achieve something, such as success

2. the aim of such desire

3. 1. the act of breathing

   2. a breath

4. phonetics

   1. the pronunciation of a stop with an audible and forceful release of breath

   2. the friction of the released breath

   3. an aspirated consonant

5. removal of air or fluid from a body cavity by suction

6. med

   1. the sucking of fluid or foreign matter into the air passages of the body

   2. the removal of air or fluid from the body by suction

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Other Word Forms

• aspirational
  adjective
• aspiratory
  adjective
• superaspiration
  noun

Etymology

Origin of aspiration

First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin aspīrātiōn-, stem of aspīrātiō “a breathing upon”; see aspirate, -ion

Explanation

If your aspiration, or ambition, is to climb Mt. Everest someday, you better start training, because it’s a long, hard climb that requires a lot of preparation. Aspiration means "inhalation" or "breathing." So how did it come to mean "ambition" or "the will to succeed"? The Latin gives us a clue: spirare ("to breathe") and spiritus ("spirit"). It was once believed that our breath was our soul or spirit, which might explain why we talk about "breathing life into" something, or coming up with energy and ideas to invigorate it. How else to breathe life into something than with ambition and drive, in other words, "spirit"?

Example Sentences

Lincoln did not treat the Revolution as an open-ended aspiration; he gave it a moral center, insisting that equality was not an optional inheritance but the nation’s core identity.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 22, 2026

However, if a poem leads you to a state of understanding, of awareness, and above all, aspiration, then you start to think about a different life, you want to live differently.

From Barron's • May 21, 2026

It also normalizes elite privilege by reframing it as relatable aspiration.

From Salon • May 18, 2026

“I was raised by two moms, and I had this strange aspiration to become the dad,” Malone said, laughing.

From Los Angeles Times • May 8, 2026

Before long, Handel’s English-language oratorios even featured home-grown English singer-soloists, too, fulfilling contemporary actor-playwright and Poet Laureate Colley Cibber’s aspiration to ‘reconcile Musick to the English Tongue’.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

Related Words

• aim
• ambition
• desire
• dream
• eagerness
• endeavor
• inclination
• longing
• objective
• passion
• wish
• yearning