How To Use “Aspire” and “Inspire” Correctly
Aspire means “to have a strong desire to achieve or become something.” Inspire can mean “to encourage someone,” “to elicit a particular feeling or emotion in someone,” or “to give someone an idea for something.”
“Aspire” vs. “Inspire”
Believe it or not, there’s a difference between aspire and inspire. If you’ve been using these words synonymously, don’t worry, you’re not alone. The similar spelling and pronunciation of these words lead many people to believe that they can be used interchangeably. Do you aspire to learn the difference? After reading this blog post, you’ll know how to use these words correctly and might feel inspired to teach others, too.
What Does “Aspire” Mean?
Let’s start with aspire. This word is a verb that means “to have a strong desire to achieve a goal or to become something.” So, if your goal is to become a doctor, you could say I aspire to become a doctor. Similarly, you could also say I aspire to a career in medicine.
Aspire is usually followed by the word “to.” Here are a few more examples of aspire in a sentence:
There are noun and adjective forms of the word aspire. As a noun, the word is aspiration, which means “a strong desire to have or do something.”
There are two adjective forms of the word aspire. Aspirational refers to “wanting to achieve success in your career and improve your social status or standard of living.”
Aspirational can also refer to “a goal that is very ambitious.”
Aspiring which is also an adjective means “wanting to become successful in life or in a career that was mentioned.”
What Does “Inspire” Mean?
Inspire, on the other hand, is a verb that means “to give somebody the desire, confidence, or encouragement to do something well,” “to give somebody the idea for something,” or “to evoke a certain feeling in someone.”
Although not as common, inspire can also mean “inhale.”
Inspire also has noun and adjective forms. The adjective forms of inspire can be either inspirational, inspired, or inspiring.
Inspirational means “providing exciting or innovative ideas,” or “making somebody want to create something.”
Inspired means “having excellent qualities,” or “produced with inspiration.” It can also be used to show that something has been influenced.
Inspiring means “exciting or encouraging someone to do or feel something.”
If you have been inspired, then you have inspiration within you, which is the noun form of this word.
LanguageTool: Aspiring To Inspire
Now that you know the difference between these two words, we hope you’re feeling inspired to use them confidently in your writing. And if you aspire to write exceptional texts, make sure to use LanguageTool as your writing assistant. This multilingual text editor will correct any mistakes and also suggest stylistic improvements.
