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Crossword clues for inspire

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
an inspired guess (=a very good guess that you make suddenly)
▪ It’s hard to believe he got that right with just an inspired guess.
an inspiring example (=someone who makes other people want to do something great or good)
▪ Jenny’s story is an inspiring example of courage in the face of adversity.
inspire confidence (=make people have confidence)
▪ Our education system should inspire public confidence.
inspire terror
▪ The main aim of suicide bombers is to inspire terror in the population.
inspire/command sb's loyalty (=make someone feel loyal to you)
▪ He inspires extraordinary loyalty among his staff.
▪ His replacement, Sanath Jayasuriya is a man of impressive dignity, who inspires devotion rather than awe from his players.
▪ The megaliths command our attention, inspiring us with awe and curiousity.
▪ One of Baldwin's weaknesses in dealing with his colleagues was that, at least until after 1931, he inspired no awe.
▪ The fair inspired awe and pride and reverence.
▪ Far from inspiring individualism, or egoism, the act should inspire awe, humility.
▪ The scenery inspires awe and apprehension and fear even on a summer day; in stormy conditions, the effect is frightening.
▪ It has always inspired awe and wonderment.
▪ Spennymoor impresario John Wray met Angie last summer and was inspired to book her for several tours of the North-East.
▪ The chocolate recipes are particularly inspiring, but the book also includes a bundle of recipes featuring all manner of fruit.
▪ This will do more to inspire public confidence than the prison officers' negative attitude.
▪ My boy, the first and foremost work of a doctor is to inspire confidence in his being one.
▪ A test ban that could not inspire confidence would undermine stability and might even provoke a new arms race.
▪ Her strength was her ability to elicit and inspire confidences rather than fear in the people she befriended.
▪ Lukic hardly inspires confidence either in such situations.
▪ Yet he has a train of attendants on the battlefield which should inspire anyone with confidence.
▪ What impressed most was how useable this near 30-year-old car feels, and how quickly it inspires confidence.
▪ In short, he inspires confidence.
▪ Its history has inspired several films.
▪ This, as we shall see, is not quite true: some mystics were inspired by scholastic ideas.
▪ Most had escaped but some were freed by owners newly inspired by the idea of liberty.
▪ Secondly much of the research on class has been inspired by ideas and questions raised by Marx.
▪ Kirk Fordice, it is a divinely inspired idea to wean families off welfare.
▪ This, furthermore, is the inspiring idea that inhabits much Far Eastern Buddhist art.
▪ Mysteriously, the Halloween pumpkin had been an inspired idea of his.
▪ Many enduring ballets have been inspired by stories from world literature.
▪ I hope McCarthy will discover them, and tell your readers about them and their students.They make a better and inspiring story.
▪ Jaguar was inspired by stories that General Motors was preparing to bid.
▪ His comments inspired the students, but placed him on the list of suspicious intellectuals.
▪ It has served to illuminate and inspire many thousands of students, teachers and academics throughout the world.
▪ As a student Keith was particularly inspired by Gurdon's work.
▪ His political clumsiness and know-it-all manner raise questions about his ability to inspire the country and work with Congress.
▪ Because having helped to inspire the fear of the devil, he offers redemption.
▪ McQueen seems to inspire Hoffman to underplay, too.
▪ Her brightening of mood seems largely inspired by the light bulb she has been standing next to.
▪ Kernaghan was superb at the back and seemed to inspire those around him.
▪ The Compagnie du Saint Sacrement and the Rosicrucians seem to have been inspired by political as well as spiritual goals.
▪ No, Minter was motivated more by the unreasoning malice which individual achievement seemed often to inspire in others.
▪ Familiar faith formulae seem not to inspire.
▪ His pluralist view of the nature of the State seems inspired by Maitland.
▪ The poet and the painter have never met before, but their pairing seems inspired.
inspired guess/choice etc
▪ As it happens, he made an inspired choice.
▪ But my father's was an inspired guess.
▪ If he can be persuaded to keep religion out of politics, he could prove an inspired choice.
▪ In Whitham's case it was different and he certainly was what could be termed an inspired choice by the Lightweight club.
▪ It could prove an inspired choice for New Zealand.
politically/religiously etc inspired
▪ Apart from politically inspired race riots in the early 1960s, rarely did Black people behave badly towards us.
▪ Bykov denies wrong doing and says the forthcoming trial is politically inspired.
▪ Thirdly, there was now a legal precedent upon which to mount attacks on politically inspired censorship.
▪ Mrs. Pianto was the kind of woman who inspired kindness.
▪ The country needs a leader who can inspire its citizens.
▪ The lecture today really inspired me to read more poetry.
▪ The movie was inspired by real events.
▪ When I actually visited the university, it inspired me and made me want to go there.
The Collaborative International Dictionary

Inspire \In*spire"\ ([i^]n*sp[imac]r"), v. t. [OE. enspiren, OF. enspirer, inspirer, F. inspirer, fr. L. inspirare; pref. in- in + spirare to breathe. See Spirit.]

  1. To breathe into; to fill with the breath; to animate.

    When Zephirus eek, with his sweete breath, Inspir[`e]d hath in every holt and heath The tender crops.

    Descend, ye Nine, descend and sing, The breathing instruments inspire.

  2. To infuse by breathing, or as if by breathing.

    He knew not his Maker, and him that inspired into him an active soul.
    --Wisdom xv. 11.

  3. To draw in by the operation of breathing; to inhale; -- opposed to expire.

    Forced to inspire and expire the air with difficulty.


    And generous stout courage did inspire.

    But dawning day new comfort hath inspired.

  5. To infuse into; to affect, as with a superior or supernatural influence; to fill with what animates, enlivens, or exalts; to communicate inspiration to; as, to inspire a child with sentiments of virtue; to inspire a person to do extraordinary feats.

    Erato, thy poet's mind inspire, And fill his soul with thy celestial fire.


Inspire \In*spire"\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Inspired; p. pr. & vb. n. Inspiring.]

  1. To draw in breath; to inhale air into the lungs; -- opposed to expire.

  2. To breathe; to blow gently. [Obs.]

    And when the wind amongst them did inspire, They wav[`e]d like a penon wide dispread.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary



vb. (context transitive English) To infuse into the mind; to communicate to the spirit; to convey, as by a divine or supernatural influence; to disclose preternaturally; to produce in, as by inspiration.

  1. v. heighten or intensify; "These paintings exalt the imagination" [syn: animate, invigorate, enliven, exalt]

  2. supply the inspiration for; "The article about the artist inspired the exhibition of his recent work"

  3. serve as the inciting cause of; "She prompted me to call my relatives" [syn: prompt, instigate]

  4. urge on or encourage especially by shouts; "The crowd cheered the demonstrating strikers" [syn: cheer, urge, barrack, urge on, exhort, pep up]

  5. fill with revolutionary ideas [syn: revolutionize, revolutionise]

  6. draw in (air); "Inhale deeply"; "inhale the fresh mountain air"; "The patient has trouble inspiring"; "The lung cancer patient cannot inspire air very well" [syn: inhale, breathe in] [ant: exhale]

Inspire (song)

Inspire is the thirty-third single released by Ayumi Hamasaki. It came out on July 28, 2004. The single was the number-one single on the Oricon charts for that week. To date, Inspire has sold over 330,000 copies, making it Hamasaki's highest selling single of 2004. The PV for Inspire was filmed in Los Angeles, California.

Inspire (Casiopea album)

Inspire is the thirty-sixth album by the jazz fusion group Casiopea recorded and released in 2002.

Inspire (magazine)


Inspire (Jack Vidgen album)

Inspire is the second studio album by Australian recording artist Jack Vidgen, also the winner of the fifth season of Australia's Got Talent. It was released on 27 April 2012, after his voice suddenly broke turning deeper; making it sound different from his first album.

Inspire (La'Mule album)

Inspire is the first full-length studio album by visual kei rock group La'Mule. The album was released through Bandai Music Entertainment on December 2, 1998. Two songs from the album, Mind Control and Usagi no Tsumi, had been released earlier that year as a double single.

Usage examples of "inspire".


Aunt Alphonsine, covering her bosom with those arms which looked so preternaturally and rapaciously long in the tight sleeves that Frenchwomen always love, and fingering now and then the scar that crossed her oval face as if it were an amulet the touch of which inspired her to be righteous and malign.

It flew about among the tree ferns, and when its tail struck the branches, they were almost surprised not to hear the harmonious strains that inspired Amphion to rebuild the walls of Thebes.

Calcutta was so great that it inspired Brereton to send his eight bombers on a not too effective raid of Rangoon and the Andaman Islands where the Japanese were accumulating shipping.

But, although believing fully in my oracles, they were too kind-hearted to think them the work of the devil, and it suited their natural goodness better to believe my answers inspired by some heavenly spirit.

Alkyoneus, the archenemy of the gods, appeared, clad in rattling strips and chains of metal armor, inspiring the Giant forces to renewed efforts.

At the time of her betrothal, she had fancied she loved Ardea, for the emotion of her religious life at length freed had inspired her with gratitude for him who was, however, only the pretext of that exemption.

She was trembling, and Jenna wondered what Arion had done to terrify her so, although she already knew he could inspire fear with just a glance, with those glittering, obsidian eyes.

Annabelle, inspired by a picture in a book of fairy tales that had been around the old farm since nobody could remember when, had added fat little armseye puffs and outlined them with more of the ribbon.


Their only consolation now is the realization that through her painstaking and sustained labours for the Cause in Auckland Mrs Blundell has left an abiding monument to her memory, and one which will continue for many years to come to inspire and strengthen them all in their collective endeavours for the establishment of the Faith in New Zealand.

But the reality of the situation was that while Colonel Galpa had once exulted in his good fortune and availed himself of every pleasurable opportunity, he had come to the conclusion that there was something ghoulish about these quasi-ritualistic bacchanals inspired by the deaths of three men whose faces he had never seen.

The reader will understand, therefore, that when the genius and his mate proposed to start on Macpherson, they were laying out a capacious contract for the cast-iron canvasser, and were taking a step which could only have been inspired by a morbid craving for excitement, aided by the influence of backblock whisky.

Our decision about where to send Chelsea to school had inspired passionate debate inside and outside the Beltway, largely because of its symbolic significance.
