ASPIRE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does aspire mean? 

• ASPIRE (verb)
  The verb ASPIRE has 1 sense:

1. have an ambitious plan or a lofty goal

  Familiarity information: ASPIRE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ASPIRE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they aspire    ... he / she / it aspires   
Past simple: aspired   
Past participle: aspired   
-ing form: aspiring   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Have an ambitious plan or a lofty goal

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

aim; aspire; draw a bead on; shoot for

Hypernyms (to "aspire" is one way to...):

be after; plan (have the will and intention to carry out some action)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "aspire"):

overshoot (aim too high)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s to INFINITIVE

Sentence example:

They aspire to move

Derivation:

aspirant (an ambitious and aspiring young person)

aspirant (desiring or striving for recognition or advancement)

aspiration (a will to succeed)

aspiration (a cherished desire)

aspirer (an ambitious and aspiring young person)

 Context examples 

Being assisted by a gentleman who not long ago aspired to the favour of your hand, I am sanguine as to that.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

This he resented, and when she stood shoulder to shoulder with him, bristling and showing her teeth, the aspiring solitary ones would back off, turn-tail, and continue on their lonely way.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The warm spring sunshine brought out all sorts of aspiring ideas, tender hopes, and happy thoughts.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Then three or four western bad men aspired to clean out the town, were riddled like pepper-boxes for their pains, and public interest turned to other idols.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

She instructed her daughter in the tenets of her religion and taught her to aspire to higher powers of intellect and an independence of spirit forbidden to the female followers of Muhammad.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

As to the gaining of knighthood, in such stirring times it was no great matter for a brave squire of gentle birth to aspire to that honor.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

Why was he beaten out of heaven? Because he was less brave than God? less proud? less aspiring? No! A thousand times no!

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He wanted to train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked me hourly to aspire to the standard he uplifted.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)