aspirate
/ˈæs.pəɹ.ət/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.10 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The puff of air accompanying the release of a plosive or fricative consonant.
noun
A sound produced by such a puff of air.
noun
A mark of aspiration (ʽ) used in Greek; the asper, or rough breathing.
Example Sentences
- "We now come to the so-called aspirate [h], which must be also classified as a fricative consonant."
- "a. 1742, Richard Bentley, letter to Dr. Mead But we must correct then twenty authors who have it in the compound ἀπηθεῖν and ἀπήθημα ; and not (as the aspirate would require it) ἀφηθεῖν and αφήθημα"
- "Scrape cells using a cell scraper and aspirate the resulting slurry into a 2.0-mL Eppendorf tube."
- "The autopsy found that the casualty had aspirated in her sleep."
- "There is no doubt that the uncertainty about the letter H, which much defaces English in some classes of the community, is due entirely to Norman influence, for Frenchmen could not aspirate. Three words—hour, honor, heir, with compounds of them such as hourly, honourable, heirship, and the like, are quite enough to puzzle people who find H sometimes sounded, sometimes not."
- "[…]and there was in Late Middle Bengali a tendency to drop aspiration of non-initial aspirate stops."
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin aspīrātus.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈæs.pəɹ.ət/
- British English: /ˈæs.pəɹ.ət/
Usage
Inflected Forms
aspirates (plural)
aspirates (present, singular)
aspirating (participle, present)
aspirated (participle, past)
aspirated (past)
more aspirate (comparative)
most aspirate (superlative)