aspirate
Meaning
To pronounce a sound with an audible puff of breath.
To draw fluid or a foreign body into the lungs or airway by breathing.
A speech sound pronounced with an audible puff of breath, such as the 'h' in 'hat' or the first 'p' in 'pit'.
Structure
Usage
In English, we aspirate the 'p' at the beginning of words like 'pen' and 'pot'.
The doctor had to aspirate the fluid from the patient's swollen knee.
The phonetic symbol [ʰ] indicates an aspirated consonant.
Etymology
The word 'aspirate' is built from the Latin verb aspirare, meaning "to breathe upon, to blow on". This verb itself is a compound of the prefix ad- (meaning "to, towards") and the root spirare (meaning "to breathe"). The literal sense of "breathing towards" something evolved into the technical meanings of pronouncing a sound with a strong breath or drawing something in with the breath. The core logic connecting the ancient root to the modern definitions is the fundamental action of breath, whether it carries a speech sound or physically moves a fluid.
Analysis
- a-: A Latin prefix meaning "to, towards". - spir: A root from Latin spirare, meaning "to breathe". - ate: A suffix forming verbs, from Latin -atus.