Home UK English aspirate

Meaning of aspirate in English:

aspirate

Pronunciation /ˈaspəreɪt/

Translate aspirate into Spanish

verb

[with object]

  • 1Medicine
    Breathe (something) in; inhale.

    ‘some drowning victims don't aspirate any water’
    • ‘Many foods can be dangerous for small children since they can aspirate the items, which will result in blockage of the breathing passages.’
    • ‘By this time he had started to cough and was aspirating fluids.’
    • ‘Blood should be cultured from all patients who have aspirated water.’
    • ‘He aspirated some water and another coughing spasm started.’
    • ‘In addition, there was a possibility that Sarah had aspirated vomit.’
    1. 1.1Draw (fluid) by suction from a vessel or cavity.
      ‘bile was aspirated through a catheter’
      • ‘Fresh blood was aspirated from the nasogastric tube.’
      • ‘Fluid is easily aspirated when the needle is properly positioned.’
      • ‘The fluid was aspirated by immediate gentle hand suction applied to the instilling syringe after each instillation.’
      • ‘A volume of 60 ml of blood was aspirated from his knee.’
      • ‘At autopsy, all remaining pleural fluid was aspirated from the right pleural space.’

noun

  • 1Phonetics
    An aspirated consonant.

    ‘They can't seem to handle hard aspirates at all, and sibilants are difficult for them.’
    • ‘In fact, air flow continues at a very high rate for a very long time in these sounds relative to aspirates.’
    1. 1.1A sound of h.
      ‘Conversely, there is often an intrusive aspirate between vowels, as in ‘cre-haytion’ for creation and ‘hi-haytus’ for hiatus.’
      • ‘She fires off the cleanest and most articulated runs without a trace of strain or unwanted aspirates.’
      • ‘And the Sindhu of Sanskrit became Hindhu or Hindu in Persian, following the practice of changing ‘S’ into an aspirate in Persian.’

  • 2Medicine
    mass noun Matter that has been drawn from the body by suction.

    ‘gastric aspirate’
    • ‘oesophageal aspirates’
    • ‘Bronchial aspirate were obtained by aseptic technique using a sterile suction catheter each time.’
    • ‘Iron staining of the bone marrow aspirate revealed increased storage iron.’
    • ‘To confirm a suspected second relapse, a bone marrow aspirate and core biopsy were performed.’
    • ‘Likewise, observing the appearance of feeding tube aspirate is also unreliable because gastric contents can look similar to respiratory secretions.’
    • ‘In four of nine cases, the same pathogen was diagnosed both in serum and in the nasopharyngeal aspirate.’

adjective

Phonetics

  • (of a sound) pronounced with an exhalation of breath; aspirated.

    ‘For instance, aspirated consonants are written with a small superscript h after the symbol for the corresponding unaspirated consonant.’
    • ‘Alongside the general schema for a syllable-onset consonant, however, there exist more specific schemas concerning individual sounds (such as p), classes of sounds (the aspirated stops), and so on.’
    • ‘So let's practice distinguishing ejective from aspirated stops, okay class?’
    • ‘For example, the aspirated series of stops and affricates are written by adding a horizontal stroke to the letters for the plain series.’
    • ‘In speech, hard ‘r’ frequently gets nasalized, in the same way as ‘k’ becomes aspirated in the American throat.’

Origin

Mid 16th century (as an adjective): from Latin aspiratus ‘breathed’, past participle of aspirare (see aspire).