INSPIRE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Inspire

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/ɪnspˈaɪr/ Listen

verb

Inspire v. t.

1.

To breathe into; to fill with the breath; to animate. "When Zephirus eek, with his sweete breath, Inspirèd hath in every holt and heath The tender crops." "Descend, ye Nine, descend and sing, The breathing instruments inspire."

2.

To infuse by breathing, or as if by breathing. "He knew not his Maker, and him that inspired into him an active soul."

3.

To draw in by the operation of breathing; to inhale; opposed to expire. "Forced to inspire and expire the air with difficulty."

4.

To infuse into the mind; to communicate to the spirit; to convey, as by a divine or supernatural influence; to disclose preternaturally; to produce in, as by inspiration. "And generous stout courage did inspire." "But dawning day new comfort hath inspired."

5.

To infuse into; to affect, as with a superior or supernatural influence; to fill with what animates, enlivens, or exalts; to communicate inspiration to; as, to inspire a child with sentiments of virtue; to inspire a person to do extraordinary feats. "Erato, thy poet's mind inspire, And fill his soul with thy celestial fire."

Inspire v. i. (past & past part. inspired; pres. part. inspiring)

1.

To draw in breath; to inhale air into the lungs; opposed to expire.

2.

To breathe; to blow gently. (Obs.) "And when the wind amongst them did inspire, They wavèd like a penon wide dispread."

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Etymology of 'Inspire'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Inspire" Quotes from Famous Books

... was for the older composers, and he did not yield a ready homage to those of the newer schools. Of this he speaks in the closing number of his journal: "Startling as the new composers are, and novel, curious, brilliant, beautiful at times, they do not inspire us as we have been inspired before, and do not bring us nearer heaven. We feel no inward call to the proclaiming of the new gospel. We have tried to do justice to these works as they have claimed our notice, and have omitted no intelligence of them which came within the limits of our columns, but ...

— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke

... its foul state, and flung it angrily on the ground. As the man stooped to pick it up Clovis, with his own axe, cleft his skull in twain, exclaiming: "Thus didst thou to the vase at Soissons." "Even so," says Gregory quaintly, "did he inspire ...

— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... The actual business of following into the field the men who represent the tendencies of any time, and of helping to get through with the unavoidable fighting-jobs which they organize, seems to inspire the same rhetoric in every age, and to reproduce the same set of conventional war-images. The range of feeling is narrow; the enthusiasm for great generals is expressed in pompous commonplaces; even the dramatic circumstances ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the nation were now centered on this comparatively young man, who was called to the post of Chief Executive in so trying a manner. And Roosevelt's first public act was such as to inspire the utmost confidence in him, for he declared that he would follow out the McKinley policies and retain the McKinley Cabinet. Throughout his term he strove conscientiously to keep the letter of his promise, although it was ...

— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... way with wonderful stories, with which he played upon the old lady's credulity. Of course it was wrong; but a street education is not very likely to inspire its pupils with a reverence for truth; and Ben had been knocking about the streets of New York, most of the time among the wharves, for six years. His street education had commenced at the age of ten. He had adopted it of his own free will. Even now there was a comfortable home ...

— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger

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