Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To breathe.
  • intransitive verb To sigh.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A deep breath; a sigh.
  • To fetch a long, deep breath: sigh.
  • To breathe.
  • To sigh or long for.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A long, deep breath; a sigh.
  • intransitive verb To fetch a long, deep breath; to sigh; to breathe.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To breathe.
  • verb To exhale.
  • verb To sigh.
  • noun obsolete A long, deep breath; a sigh.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb heave or utter a sigh; breathe deeply and heavily
  • verb draw air into, and expel out of, the lungs

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English suspiren, to sigh, from Old French, from Latin suspīrāre : sub-, from below; see sub– + spīrāre, to breathe.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French suspirer (Modern soupirer), from Latin.

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Examples

  • The days are yawning in view of the years struggling to suspire

    Utter the long Calib Donigan 2011

  • Each of the principals, seconded by his particular waiter, after carefully taking his opponent's range and bearings, will suspire and hit him in the eye.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 Various

  • Marlow's tale was a powerful one: I could hear Mrs. Marlow suspire faintly, ever so faintly -- the troubled, small, soft sigh of a brave woman indefinably stricken.

    Plum Pudding Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned Christopher Morley 1923

  • The elements we feel and see shift and drift and suspire

    Perpetual Light : a memorial William Rose Ben��t 1918

  • Between pulls he would suspire deeply, so as to get the full assistance of the Climate.

    Ade's Fables George Ade 1905

  • "But times are bad!" he would suspire in moments of depression.

    The Valley of the Kings Marmaduke William Pickthall 1905

  • Between pulls he would suspire deeply, so as to get the full assistance of the Climate.

    Ade's Fables George Ade 1905

  • Zadkiel or no Zadkiel, I will suspire, and risk it, "O that I were lying under the olives!"

    From a Cornish Window A New Edition Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch 1903

  • Each flight they take: and fire-flies, that suspire

    Aurora Leigh 1864

  • You verify in energy, you provide discover energy, you permit it line … you don't essay to kibosh the flow, you don't set and vexation when you suspire whether and where from module added respite come, you foregather permit it become in and go out.

    xml's Blinklist.com 2008

Comments

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  • -- Lovely! Buck Mulligan suspired amorously.

    Joyce, Ulysses, 9

    January 6, 2007

  • A living, breathing—well, breathing at least—vampire.

    March 25, 2009