Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In an aspiring manner; soaringly; ambitiously.

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

  • adverb in an aspiring manner

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

aspiring +‎ -ly

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Examples

  • Published in 1958, The Changeling recounts the story of the nice aspiringly middle-class Forbes family living in Glasgow.

    45 entries from March 2008 2008

  • So obsessed that he concealed his decidedly uncool secret from all but one or two of his aspiringly cool fellow Beats.

    Dean Sluyter: It's Official: Nobody's Cool. (Kerouac Posthumously Blows It) 2009

  • One of my favourites, this is a light hearted piece inspired by a chance encounter at a private party with a man then at the height of his power in the country; I was fascinated beyond words by the effect he had on the would-be urbane and aspiringly sophisticated!

    Archive 2007-05-01 Geraldine Moorkens Byrne 2007

  • One of my favourites, this is a light hearted piece inspired by a chance encounter at a private party with a man then at the height of his power in the country; I was fascinated beyond words by the effect he had on the would-be urbane and aspiringly sophisticated!

    Politician in Private Society Geraldine Moorkens Byrne 2007

  • It is said that imitation is the sincerest flattery; and if Isabel was sometimes moved to gape at her friend aspiringly and despairingly it was not so much because she desired herself to shine as because she wished to hold up the lamp for Madame Merle.

    The Portrait of a Lady 2003

  • It was to teach them, that the holiest amongst us has but attained so far above his fellows as to discern more clearly the Mercy which looks down, and repudiate more utterly the phantom of human merit, which would look aspiringly upward.

    The Scarlet Letter 2002

  • It was a room designed aspiringly for a brandy and a fire, a failed room, perversely furnished, and she drank tea and tried to read a book.

    THE BODY ARTIST DON DELILLO 2001

  • It was a room designed aspiringly for a brandy and a fire, a failed room, perversely furnished, and she drank tea and tried to read a book.

    THE BODY ARTIST DON DELILLO 2001

  • It was a room designed aspiringly for a brandy and a fire, a failed room, perversely furnished, and she drank tea and tried to read a book.

    THE BODY ARTIST DON DELILLO 2001

  • It was a room designed aspiringly for a brandy and a fire, a failed room, perversely furnished, and she drank tea and tried to read a book.

    THE BODY ARTIST DON DELILLO 2001

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  • "Someday I'll run the CIA" said young Tom aspiringly.

    December 14, 2007