INSPIRATION • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Inspiration

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/ˌɪnspərˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Inspiration n.

1.

The act of inspiring or breathing in; breath; specif. (Physiol.), the drawing of air into the lungs, accomplished in mammals by elevation of the chest walls and flattening of the diaphragm; the opposite of expiration.

2.

The act or power of exercising an elevating or stimulating influence upon the intellect or emotions; the result of such influence which quickens or stimulates; as, the inspiration of occasion, of art, etc. "Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good inspirations."

3.

(Theol.) A supernatural divine influence on the prophets, apostles, or sacred writers, by which they were qualified to communicate moral or religious truth with authority; a supernatural influence which qualifies men to receive and communicate divine truth; also, the truth communicated. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." "The age which we now live in is not an age of inspiration and impulses."

Plenary inspiration (Theol.), that kind of inspiration which excludes all defect in the utterance of the inspired message.

Verbal inspiration (Theol.), that kind of inspiration which extends to the very words and forms of expression of the divine message.

See images of 'Inspiration'

Etymology of 'Inspiration'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Inspiration" Quotes from Famous Books

... that Fanny Brandeis had chosen. On the face of things you would have said she had chosen well. The inspiration of the roller skates had not been merely a lucky flash. That idea had been part of the consistent whole. Her mind was her mother's mind raised to the nth power, and enhanced by the genius she was trying to crush. Refusing to ...

— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... the "moving effigies which ennoble for all time the charming and venerable fronts of our cathedrals"; that he would express a whole system of philosophy, new to me, by the use of marvellous imagery, to the inspiration of which I would naturally have ascribed that sound of harping which began to chime and echo in my ears, an accompaniment to which that imagery added something ethereal and sublime. One of these passages of Bergotte, the third or fourth which I had detached ...

— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... not slept all night, mounted her bicycle and rode out into the fresh and brilliant sunlight on a forlorn hope. An idea had come to her as an inspiration which, though unlikely, was not an impossibility. In the search for the missing ones, every road in the District was being scoured without success. Since the rain had obliterated all tracks there had been nothing to guide any one in the quest, and nothing had been gleaned from villagers. ...

— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... his features lighted up with a happy inspiration—"then you will appreciate my situation. I fondly cherished my old picture of you in my memory. Now I have lost it, and I can not help regretting the loss. I do not mean, however, to imply that this new acquaintance—this ...

— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... says (Gen. ad lit. ii, 15): "We must confess that when the truth is foretold by astrologers, this is due to some most hidden inspiration, to which the human mind is subject without knowing it. And since this is done in order to deceive man, it must be the work of ...

— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

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