aspirate

noun

1. The puff of air accompanying the release of a plosive or fricative consonant.
2. A sound produced by such a puff of air.

   “We now come to the so-called aspirate [h], which must be also classified as a fricative consonant.”

3. A mark of aspiration (ʽ) used in Greek; the asper, or rough breathing.

   “a. 1742, Richard Bentley, letter to Dr. Mead But we must correct then twenty authors who have it in the compound ἀπηθεῖν and ἀπήθημα ; and not (as the aspirate would require it) ἀφηθεῖν and αφήθημα”

4. A sample of fluid, tissue, or other substance that is withdrawn via aspiration (usually through a hollow needle) from a body cavity, cyst, or tumor.

verb

1. (transitive)To remove a liquid or gas by means of suction.

   “Scrape cells using a cell scraper and aspirate the resulting slurry into a 2.0-mL Eppendorf tube.”

2. (transitive)To inhale something other than air into one's lungs.
3. (intransitive)To suffocate, having inhaled something other than air.

   “The autopsy found that the casualty had aspirated in her sleep.”

4. (ambitransitive)To produce an audible puff of breath, especially following a consonant, such as the letter "h" at the beginning of house or hat in standard English.

   “There is no doubt that the uncertainty about the letter H, which much defaces English in some classes of the community, is due entirely to Norman influence, for Frenchmen could not aspirate. Three words—hour, honor, heir, with compounds of them such as hourly, honourable, heirship, and the like, are quite enough to puzzle people who find H sometimes sounded, sometimes not.”

adj

1. Synonym of aspirated.

   “[…]and there was in Late Middle Bengali a tendency to drop aspiration of non-initial aspirate stops.”