aspire

verb

1. (intransitive)To have a strong desire or ambition to achieve something.

   “to aspire to / for / after / to do something; to aspire that something happens”

   “He aspires to become a successful doctor.”

   “We aspire that the world will be a better place.”

   “There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to, / That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, / More pangs and fears than wars or women have:”

   “Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell, / Aspiring to be Angels, Men rebell:”

2. (obsolete, transitive)To go as high as, to reach the top of (something).

   “Thus ſhall my heart be ſtil combinde with thine, / Untill our bodies turne to Elements: / And both our ſoules aſpire celeſtiall thrones.”

   “Mercutio’s dead! / That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds,”

   “rockes so high / That birds could scarce aspire their ridgy toppes”

   “She’s vitious; and your partiall selves confesse, / aspires the height of all impietie:”

3. (archaic, intransitive, literary, transitive)To move upward; to be very tall.

   “In midſt of which a ſumptuous Temple ſtands, / That threats the ſtarres with her aſpiring toppe.”

   “As they descended, they saw […] one of the grand passes of the Pyreneáes into Spain, gleaming with its battlements and towers to the splendour of the setting rays, yellow tops of woods colouring the steeps below, while far above aspired the snowy points of the mountains, still reflecting a rosy hue.”

   “Seas that restlessly aspire, / Surging, unto skies of fire;”

   “There is a moonshaped rictus in the streetlamp’s globe where a stone has gone and from this aperture there drifts down through the constant helix of aspiring insects a faint and steady rain of the same forms burnt and lifeless.”