aspire

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To have a great ambition or ultimate goal; desire strongly: aspired to stardom.
2. v. To strive toward an end: aspiring to great knowledge.
3. v. To soar.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To breathe to or into.
2. To breathe forth or exhale.
3. To breathe after; seek with eagerness to attain to; long or try to reach; attempt.
4. To mount or soar to; attain.
5. To be eagerly desirous; aim ambitiously, especially at something great or noble; be ambitious: followed by an object with to or after, or by an infinitive: as, to aspire to a crown or after immortality.
6. To rise up as an exhalation, or as smoke or fire; hence, to mount or ascend; tower up or rise high.
7. n. Aspiration; ardent wish or desire.

Wiktionary

1. v. To hope or dream; especially to hope or work towards a profession or occupation (followed by to as a preposition or infinitive particle).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To desire with eagerness; to seek to attain something high or great; to pant; to long; -- followed by to or after, and rarely by at
2. v. To rise; to ascend; to tower; to soar.
3. v. obsolete To aspire to; to long for; to try to reach; to mount to.
4. n. obsolete Aspiration.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. have an ambitious plan or a lofty goal