Other forms: inspired, inspiring, inspires
To inspire is to make somebody want to act or create. Inspire a generation, inspired by her mother, an inspiring teacher.
It takes a direct object, or somebody to do something: inspired him to write. It also means to cause a feeling: inspire confidence, inspire fear. Note inspiration, which means both the source and the flash of an idea; inspiring, which describes the cause; inspired, which describes the result and also means brilliantly good — an inspired choice; and that inspire once meant literally to breathe into.
1verbinspireTo make somebody want to act or create.
“Her story inspired me to start my own business.”
2verbcauseTo cause a feeling.
“The whole arrangement does not inspire confidence.”
inspire is a stirring to action.
Latin inspirare is in-, into, plus spirare, to breathe. Inspiration was originally a god breathing an idea into somebody, and the same spirare gives spirit, respire and conspire, which means breathing together.
Middle English
enspiren
English, today
inspire
Built from
From Middle English enspiren. From Middle English inspiren, enspiren, from Old French inspirer, variant of espirer, from Latin īnspīrō (“inspire”), itself a loan-translation of Biblical Ancient Greek πνέω (“breathe”), from in + spīrō (“breathe”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)peys- (“to blow, breathe”). Displaced native onbryrdan.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA