spiritus asper

From Latin spīritus asper (literally “rough breath”).

spiritus asper (plural spiritus aspers)

1. (orthography) A diacritic mark ( ʻ ) in Ancient Greek used to indicate aspiration of an initial vowel or rho; also used for a similar sound in the Wade–Giles system of romanization for Mandarin Chinese.

   The spiritus asper mark looks like an opening single quote, as in the word εὑρίσκω (heurískõ), the word εὕρηκα (heúrēka), or the word ἕξις (héxis, "habit").

   • 1836 May, “System of Orthography for Chinese words”, in The Chinese Repository‎, volume V, number I, page 27:

     h, as an aspirate, is very frequent in Chinese ; it is generally a stronger aspirate than in English : in the dialects of the south it is often changed into f, in the north into s, or sh. To mark an aspirate after a consonant, we use the Greek spiritus asper in preference to h.

• rough breathing
• dasia, dasy pneuma

• Citations:ʻ (examples from the Wade–Giles romanization system)
• spiritus lenis

From spīritus (“breath, breathing”) + asper (“rough, harsh”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈspiː.ri.tus ˈas.per/, [ˈs̠piːrɪt̪ʊs̠ ˈäs̠pɛr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈspi.ri.tus ˈas.per/, [ˈspiːrit̪us ˈäsper]

spīritus asper m (genitive spīritūs asperī); fourth declension

1. spiritus asper

Fourth-declension noun with a second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er).