aspiring

Etymology

adj

1. Hoping to become.
   Aspiring pop stars lined up for hours just to audition.
   Time and time again the people were foolish enough to trust, believe, and support with their last farthing aspiring politicians, only to find themselves betrayed and cheated. 1910, Emma Goldman, “Anarchism”, in Anarchism, and Other Essays, New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association, page 70
   Here three aspiring young seamstresses—diplomas in dressmaking from the People’s College of Zimbabwe hung on the wall—bicker and scowl at each other. 2018, Tsitsi Dangarembga, chapter 16, in This Mournable Body, Minneapolis: Graywolf Press

verb

1. present participle and gerund of aspire

noun

1. (archaic) Aspiration.
   […] if we contemplate a vegetable in its material principle, and look on it as made of earth; we must have the true Theory of the nature of that Element, or we miserably fail of our Scientifical aspirings, 1661, Joseph Glanvill, chapter 22, in The Vanity of Dogmatizing, London: Henry Eversden, pages 214–215
   1750, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 44, 18 August, 1750, in Volume 2, London: J. Payne and J. Bouquet, 1752, pp. 83-84, […] to the aspirings of unassuming trust, and filial confidence, are set no bounds.
   From whatsoe’er my wakened thoughts create Out of the hopes of thine aspirings bold, Have I collected language to unfold Truth to my countrymen; 1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Revolt of Islam, London: C. and J. Ollier, Canto 4, stanza 12, p. 81