ambition
Americannoun
-
an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment.
Too much ambition caused him to be disliked by his colleagues.
- Synonyms:
- longing, yearning, aspiration
-
the object, state, or result desired or sought after.
The crown was his ambition.
-
desire for work or activity; energy.
I awoke feeling tired and utterly lacking in ambition.
verb (used with object)
noun
-
strong desire for success, achievement, or distinction
-
something so desired; goal; aim
Other Word Forms
- ambitionless adjective
- ambitionlessly adverb
- preambition noun
- superambition noun
Etymology
Origin of ambition
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English ambicio(u)n, from Middle French or directly from Latin ambitiōn- (stem of ambitiō ), equivalent to amb- ambi- + -i- “go” + -t- past participle suffix + -iōn- -ion
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
That money will help fund Elon Musk’s ambitions to build AI data centers in space.
From Barron's
The opportunity will not only allow him to further his ambitions, but also to combine his experience in construction and brokering.
From MarketWatch
It has shown it has some influence in the Middle East, and it certainly has ambitions to gain more leverage in the future.
From BBC
A nation worth defending isn’t merely one strong enough to field an army, but one prosperous enough to reward work, invention and ambition.
Which brings me to my optimistic long-term prediction: The world will become a safer place once leaders, as a matter of course, feed their strategic ambitions and calculations through an LLM before acting on them.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
