Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An eager or strong desire to achieve something, such as fame or power.
- n. The object or goal desired: Her ambition is the presidency.
- n. Desire for exertion or activity; energy: had no ambition to go dancing.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The act of going about to solicit or obtain an office or other object of desire; a canvassing.
- n. An eager or inordinate desire for some object that confers distinction, as preferment, political power, or literary fame; desire to distinguish one's self from other men: often used in a good sense: as, ambition to be good.
- n. Hence The object of ambitious desire.
- To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; aspire to; be ambitious of.
Wiktionary
- n. uncountable, countable Eager or inordinate desire for some object that confers distinction, as preferment, honor, superiority, political power, or literary fame; desire to distinguish one's self from other people.
- n. countable An object of an ardent desire.
- n. A desire, as in (sense 1), for another person to achieve these things.
- n. uncountable A personal quality similar to motivation, not necessarily tied to a single goal.
- v. To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete The act of going about to solicit or obtain an office, or any other object of desire; canvassing.
- n. An eager, and sometimes an inordinate, desire for preferment, honor, superiority, power, or the attainment of something.
- v. rare To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet.
WordNet 3.0
- v. have as one's ambition
- n. a cherished desire
- n. a strong drive for success
Etymologies
- From Middle English ambicion, from Old French ambition, from Latin ambitio ("ambition, a striving for favor, literally 'a going around', especially of candidates for office in Rome soliciting votes"), from ambiō ("I go around, solicit votes"). See ambient, issue. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English ambicioun, excessive desire for honor, power, or wealth, from Old French ambition, from Latin ambitiō, ambitiōn-, from ambitus, past participle of ambīre, to go around (for votes); see ambient. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The main ambition is to lose some weight and get myself into better shape, which basically means covering some ground again and this time applying that old willpower to maintaining the state.”
“Whoever thinks we are a one issue party i am afraid they are wrong, i must assume this person has never heard of a 'Manifesto' yes this describes what the party wants to achieve, i take it the EDP's manifesto has not been read by this person, yes the main ambition is parity for England as was plaid cymru's for Wales and the Scottish National party for Scotland.”
“Our main ambition is to raise as many children as we can afford and give them all the love we have in us.”
“People often use the word ambition as a negative, but I can't see anything wrong with being driven.”
“But if your ambition is a one-party state and irreversible changes, then things are going right according to plan.”
This sums up the Democratic Congressional strategy perfectly. - Moe_Lane’s blog - RedState
“In young women the erotic wishes predominate almost exclusively, for their ambition is as a rule absorbed by erotic trends.”
“Petkoff at 74 year old cannot have more than a one term ambition, and as Reagan was, is old enough to measure what real glory is e.g., leaving a functional country behind and old enough to not only know the value of delegating power, but on how to do it, on whom to delegate.”
“The ANC was opposed to what he described as ambition for ambition's sake or for personal gain. lso of concern was a lack of management skills among officials in government departments.”
“And it is the desire to be a factor in the world, to increase the scope and consequence of one's self that is the leading ingredient in what we call ambition, and the desire for fame, and at least one ingredient in the desire for wealth.”
“After a country storekeeper has accumulated $20,000 or $30,000 his ambition is to be the President of a bank and he starts one with his own capital, giving some of his family or friends enough shares to qualify as Directors and comply with the Act: Thus, with $25,000 he can start a National Bank, with all the legal powers and functions of a great New York or Chicago institution.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ambition’.
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grade 3
ability, absorb, act, tive, actual, adopt, advantage, ambition, ancient, arrange, arctic, attitude and 125 more...
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-tion
vacation, suggestion, donation, condition, education, examination, federation, generation, imagination, invention, operation, pollution and 166 more...
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Any words List Its open!!
Im savin it for later
awesepoto
cooliest
sup
a-w-e-s-o-m-e
cool beans dude
hit me man
Rock on
Get a life dude
book timeweird, mongolian, 7457, saitin, toejam, aver, misanthrope, blandishment, cadge, fuschia, fuchsia, discotheque and 367 more...
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common UA vocab. in US
Interesting, there is a traditional vocabulary of an Ukrainian, that differs from vocabulary of average American. It would be nice to explore it.
jackdaw, incongruous, cassock, vivid, magpie, humdrum, amongst, wonder, wandering, wheedling, wheedle, osseous and 368 more...
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Ayumi G3
Ability, absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient, approach and 128 more...
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POL - campaign tokenisms
Positive words and vague promises. THE words and expressions to use when you want to win over the masses or just don't know what to say.
"CAPITAL" stands for the administrative capital...grow, greatest country, greatest, grow the economy, great nation, great decisions, great, government, great NATIONAL su..., good times, good job, good and generous... and 751 more...
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Word List Level RED 1-40
Ability, absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient, approach and 28 more...
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Words
Just words!
enjoyed, quiet breath, my jacket torn to..., daze, missing angel juan, had, there are these t..., called, buffalo, sun, word, words and 14 more...
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Word List Level RED 1-40
absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advince, ambition, ancient, approach, arrange and 28 more...
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Word List - Level Red 1-40
Ability, absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient, approach and 28 more...
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Grade 3
Ability, absorb, ability, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient and 26 more...
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and ...
Words that, as I see it, have some fond connection to the Alice stories through their creation or particular use by Lewis Carroll. I mean to tie them all together with contexty comments!
alice, daisy-chain, white rabbit, waistcoat-pocket, rabbit-hole, marmalade, antipathy, antipode, curtsey, dinah, tea-time, rat-hole and 232 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2369 more... -
kodjo's list
level 4 speaking week 1
admire, ambition, experience, grow up, memory, opportunity, proud, regret, succes
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bensli's list
admire, ambition, experience, grow up, memory, opportunity, proud, regret, success
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ambition.
rie *a strong wish to achieve something what we want
*a strong desire to be successful May 14, 2009
kayo feeling that someone wants to be May 14, 2009
luckyluc a goal or a strong desire for success May 13, 2009
andi Ehrgeiz
An eager or strong desire to achieve something
Ambition spurred him to success. May 13, 2009