January 11, 2001

aspire, aspirate

The word that I'm curious about is aspire. I was recently reading a book that referred to a character's aspirations, and it struck me how similar this was to the word aspirate. I checked with a friend in the medical field, who explained that to aspirate was essentially to inhale fluid into the lungs. So, in this sense one could die of aspiration. Are aspire and aspirate related in any way?

Intimately. Aspire, aspirate and aspiration all have embodied in their origins the idea of "breath" and/or "breathing." They--and similar words such as inspire, respire and conspire--can be traced back to the same Latin root "spirare" 'to breathe, respire, to be breathed upon or into'. Aspire and aspiration are siblings while aspirate might be called their cousin. The word aspire means to have a desire for something higher. Aspirations are those desires. Aspire comes more recently from the Latin word "aspirare." The Oxford Latin Dictionary gives many meanings for "aspirare" including 'to emit air or breath', 'to instill, infuse (an emotion or quality) into a person or thing', 'to exhale perfume, be fragrant' and 'to have a longing for'--there you have today's most common meaning. Aspire first came into print in English around 1425. The OED gives the original meaning in English--now obsolete--as "to breathe into or forth." It cites a lovely example from Sir Thomas More's The apologye made by hym published in 1533, "To spreade his beames upon vs, and aspire hys breth into vs."

Now, to the cousin, aspirate. Its first meaning in the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary is 'to articulate so as to produce an audible puff of breath, as with the first "t" of "total"'. I love that phrase, "an audible puff of breath." But I think these words--aspire, aspirate, respire, and, of course, inspire--provoke even lexicographers to poetry. Let's not forget the ur-breath-word of them all, spirit, defined by the RHWUD as 'the principle of conscious life; the vital principle in humans, animating the body or mediating between body and soul'. (Lovely, that last part, don't you agree: "mediating between body and soul.") Its root? The Latin "spirare" again, 'to breathe'.

If we trace the origins of the Latin "spirare" we arrive at the Sanskrit word "picchora" 'flute'. (One of the definitions of "aspirare" is '(of a flute) to play an accompaniment'.) So the ideas of inspiration, music and the vital spirit are all linked in the soul of the word aspire. This is exactly what Milan Kundera meant when he said that every word has two meanings: the meaning everyone knows and the deeper, more resonant meaning embodied in the word itself. Kundera says we may not be conscious of this second meaning, but we imbibe its power nevertheless when we employ it.

Medically speaking, you're right about aspirate, Miranda. According to the RHWUD, it can mean 'to inhale (fluid or a foreign body) into the bronchi and lungs'. However, it can also mean 'to remove (a fluid) from a body cavity by use of an aspirator'. Here's an example of the latter meaning culled from the 1880 Nation in the OED: "He proposes to aspirate the vapours of the chambers." That could make a great advertising slogan: "Aspirate those nasty vapors with new, improved...." Nitpicking a bit, I don't think you can die of aspiration as you would, say, of a heart attack. You certainly can die in the act of aspirating something--as poor Mama Cass did--though. And isn't drowning the ultimate aspiration?

Richard