😮‍💨 To breathe in 🧪 To remove by suction 💨 To add breath 💨 A breathy sound

to aspirate

1 8.4

To pronounce a sound with a strong breath, for example the p in pat

verb
/ˈæspəˌreɪt/

Specialized

: aspirar

Instead, she called for Yunis, and when he arrived, she spoke with him quickly and easily, as though she had never had difficulty with the pronunciation of the aspirated sounds in Urdu or appropriate infinitives or the present tense.

Examples

"Things might have gone further if it had not been for his pronunciation of the aspirated 'g.'

Fiction book (2002)
VAC consists of foam dressing covered by an adherent transparent drape and an aspirating tube connected to the vacuum pump.

Academic text (2007)
The 't' was consequently aspirated, making 'th'. 29

Academic text (2001)
Since earlier Greek script did not mark an initial 'h', there was no visible clue to why the 't' of meta became aspirated in one case but not the other.

Academic text (2001)
Therefore, ch represents a voiceless aspirated palatal affricate, and sh represents a voiceless alveopalatal fricative.

Academic text (1999)
When teaching phonetics, it is important to aspirate the consonants clearly so students can hear the differences.
The linguist noted that the word 'pat' is pronounced with an aspirated 'p' sound that distinguishes it from 'bat.'
In the pronunciation of the word 'cat,' the 'k' is aspirated, producing a distinctly powerful sound.

Surface Forms

aspirate infinitive

aspirated past

aspirated past participle

aspirating present participle

aspirates third person singular

Morphology

aspirate = aspire (opaque) = aspir + ate

Although the root relates to breath historically, the phonetic sense 'pronounce with audible breath' is a specialized use not transparently inferable from 'aspire'.

Etymology

Aspirate comes from Latin spirare 'to breathe' and ad- 'to', so it is about breath. A helpful way to remember is to think of inspire; to aspirate a sound is to pronounce it with an audible breath.