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

to aspirate

5 8.1
To accidentally breathe food or liquid into the lungs
  • verb
  • /ˈæspəˌreɪt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : aspirar
  • Feeding tubes can cause food to be spit up or aspirated.
  • patients who aspirated

Examples

  • - She'd aspirated vomitus into her mask.

    The Verdict (1982)

  • We found that patients with higher secretion levels were more likely to aspirate than patients with lower secretion levels.

    Academic text (2006)

  • "My guess is she probably aspirated some food.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Turn her head so she doesn't aspirate.

    Girl, Interrupted (1999)

  • I think she may have aspirated some food into her lung.

    The Machine (2013)

  • This allows the clinician to confirm whether or not food or liquid was aspirated.

    Academic text (2004)

  • His symptoms were consistent with just a bad case of croup, but we had to make sure he hadn't aspirated a piece of food...

    Blog text (25)

  • She aspirated meconium.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • She accidentally aspirated some water while laughing at the joke.

  • If he chokes on a piece of food, he might aspirate it into his lungs.

Synonyms

to inhale
vsto aspirate
84 2.7

To breathe in air, smoke, or gas into your lungs

is accidental intake into the lungs rather than intentional intake
to breathe in
vsto aspirate
54 1.0

To take air into your lungs through your nose or mouth

is accidental entry into the lungs rather than normal intake

How Severe

to suffocate
  • NSFW
81 6.1
to choke
  • NSFW
264 3.7
to aspirate
  • Specialized
5 8.1
to breathe in
54 1.0

Surface Forms

aspirate infinitive
aspirated past
aspirated past participle
aspirating present participle
aspirates third person singular

Morphology

aspirate = aspire (semi-transparent) = aspir + ate

The sense 'to inhale accidentally' aligns more closely with the older 'breath'-related meaning of the root and can be partly inferred by learners familiar with 'aspiration'/'aspire' in the breathing sense.

Etymology

Aspirate comes from Latin spirare 'to breathe', so it simply means 'to breathe in'. That's why to aspirate accidentally is to breathe air, liquid, or a small object into your lungs.