Inspired

How to spell inspired

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce inspired

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does inspired mean?

1. verbFilled someone with the urge or ability to do something, or prompted a particular feeling or idea.
2. adjectiveShowing brilliant, creative quality, as if produced through sudden insight.

Inspired in a sentence

• verb

  The coach's halftime talk inspired the players to fight back.

• adjective

  The architect delivered an inspired design that solved every problem at once.

• verb

  A documentary about the ocean inspired her to study marine biology.

• adjective

  Booking the early flight was an inspired decision that saved them the whole day.

Where does inspired come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb spirare, which literally meant 'to breathe', combined with the prefix in- meaning 'into'; so inspirare meant 'to breathe into'. The image behind it is wonderfully physical: ancient and medieval writers pictured a divine or creative force breathing an idea straight into a person, much as air is drawn into the lungs. English took it up through Old French inspirer in the 1300s, at first in clearly religious senses about divine influence, and only later widened to mean stirring someone's emotions or sparking their creativity. The very same spir root still breathes through a whole family of relatives, including respire, perspire, conspire, and the word spirit itself, all built on that one idea of breath. Knowing the buried root spir is the easiest way to remember the middle of inspired, since the word is simply 'breathe' wrapped in a prefix and a suffix.

How the word is built

• in- (into)
• spir (from Latin spirare: to breathe)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)