Aspirate

Aspirate (Lat. spiro, 'I breathe'), the name given to the letter h in grammar, as marking, not an articulate sound, but a breathing. It is accordingly used for the spiritus asper or 'rough breathing,' in Greek, which, written over an initial vowel, had the force of an h prefixed. The name aspirate is also applied to two classes of consonants—those really blended with h, like the Sanskrit aspirates, or in European languages, to those followed by h, like the English th, ch, with f and v. In the latter and wider sense, of sixteen English mute sounds (see LETTERS), eight are lene, each having its corresponding aspirate; the aspirates f, v, th (as in thin), th (as in thine), ch, gh, sh, zh, corresponding to p, b, t, d, k, g, s, z, respectively.