Inspirational

[JJ]

Is it a well-established word, or a late invention?

It seems to me that it appeared in the nineties or noughties in management-speak and has since spread into common use, but has it in fact been around since Shakespeare?

Searching online throws up definitions of its meaning, which seems to be the same as "inspiring", but nothing to tell me whether it's new or old.

Does anyone actually know?

JJ

[Kim]

Google Ngram

Interesting difference between American and British English, there...

[pcolbeck]

The Online Etymology Dictionary suggests it's a mid 19th century construction.

[JJ]

Thanks both!  That's fascinating.

So it does look as if it's been around, at a low level, since the mid 19th, though maybe coined earlier.

It really got going over here from about 1960 though, roughly doubling every decade since then.  My prejudice is that that probably coincided with the advent of management-speak, but I can't really claim that it's a made-up word.  I still don't like it though.

I'll try and remember those resouces, especially the Ngram one.

[Kim]

My prejudice is based in disablism (cf 'cripspiration') as much as management-speak, though I expect there's a fair amount of overlap.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Was management-speak in the 'motivational quote' sense used back in the 1960s? Inspirational and inspiration are certainly not new words, but it does seem to me that in the last decade or maybe two there's been an increase in the use of extremely positive words such as amazing, wonderful, brilliant, in place of good and other less strong words. I've got no actual evidence for that, just an impression that could well be the result of Middle Aged Man In Language syndrome.

[Cudzoziemiec]

ngram does show amazing to be increasing in popularity over the last 30 years or so, with wonderful and brilliant following more recently, while good has been somewhat flatter.