elspiri

The mirror of enspiri, and the two are best learnt in one go: en- in, el- out, spiri the breathing underneath. Say them together a few times and the prefix system stops being a list of affixes and starts being a set of directions.

Watch what Latin did with the same sum. Ex- plus spirare gave expirare, which is where English gets expire, and English then let the metaphor take over completely: a passport expires, a contract expires, and only in the most formal obituary does a person expire in the original sense of breathing out for the last time. Esperanto's elspiri never made that journey. It means exactly what its two pieces mean, and if you want a contract to run out you say la kontrakto finiĝas or la kontrakto senvalidiĝas. That is the difference between a compound you can still see the joints of and one that has fused.

The same holds for enspiri against English inspire. The built words stay literal; the borrowed ones carry whatever baggage the source language loaded onto them. It is one of the quiet advantages of a planned vocabulary, and this pair is the clearest demonstration of it in the course.

Elspiro is an exhalation, and senspira is breathless.