ambition, aspiration, pretension mean strong desire for advancement. ambition applies to the desire for personal advancement or preferment and may suggest equally a praiseworthy or an inordinate …

ASPIRATION definition: a strong desire, longing, or aim; ambition. See examples of aspiration used in a sentence.

ASPIRATION definition: 1. something that you hope to achieve: 2. the removal of a liquid or gas from a space in the body…. Learn more.

Mar 3, 2025 · Aspiration is when something other than air gets into your airways. It’s often something that’s supposed to be in your stomach — like food, water or gastric acid.

Aspiration means "inhalation" or "breathing." So how did it come to mean "ambition" or "the will to succeed"? The Latin gives us a clue: spirare ("to breathe") and spiritus ("spirit").

Definition of aspiration noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. [countable, usually plural, uncountable] a strong desire to have or do something. I didn't realize you had political aspirations. …

Someone's aspirations are their desire to achieve things. ...the needs and aspirations of our pupils. He is unlikely to send in the army to quell nationalist aspirations. ...the republic's aspiration to statehood. …

"An aspiration is a joy for ever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by a year a revenue of pleasurable activity" [Robert Louis …

There are seven meanings listed in OED's entry for the noun aspiration, two of which are labelled obsolete. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence.

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers:: aspiration /ˌæspɪˈreɪʃən/ n strong desire to achieve something, such as success the aim of such desire the act of breathing the pronunciation …