aspirated
aspirated is the simple past and past participle of aspirate.
Adjective
aspirated (comparative more aspirated, superlative most aspirated)
- Pronounced with an audible breath, a brief expulsion of air at the end of the sound.
- In English, word-initial single voiceless consonants are aspirated, so that pit is pronounced [pʰɪt] but spit is pronounced [spɪt].
- Synonyms:
- aspirate
- Antonyms:
- unaspirated
- In French, describing an initial letter h which, though silent, does not permit liaison or elision with the preceding word.
- The h in haine is aspirated, so one says la haine, not l'haine.
Meaning of aspirate
Verb
aspirate (third-person singular simple present aspirates, present participle aspirating, simple past and past participle aspirated)
- To remove a liquid or gas by means of suction.
- Scrape cells using a cell scraper and aspirate the resulting slurry into a 2.0-mL Eppendorf tube.2003, Miep H. Helfrich et al., editors, Bone Research Protocols, page 430
- To inhale something other than air into one's lungs.
- Synonyms:
- breathe in, inhale, inspire
- To suffocate, having inhaled something other than air.
- The autopsy found that the casualty had aspirated in her sleep.
- To produce an audible puff of breath, especially following a consonant, such as the letter "h" at the beginning of house or hat in standard English.
- 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...1887, James Frederick Hodgetts, Greater England, page 33
Synonyms of aspirated
Antonyms
Forms of aspirated
| comparative | more aspirated |
|---|---|
| superlative | most aspirated |
Words formed from aspirated
Questions about aspirated
- What does aspirated mean?
- Aspirated means pronounced with an audible breath, a brief expulsion of air at the end of the sound.
- What is aspirated the simple past and past participle of?
- Aspirated is the simple past and past participle of aspirate.
- What part of speech is aspirated?
- Aspirated is an adjective.
Words near aspirated in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: aspirated (page history and authors); aspirate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “aspirated.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/aspirated. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
