ambition

From Middle English ambicioun, from Old French ambition, from Latin ambitiō (“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.

• IPA^(key): /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/

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ambition (countable and uncountable, plural ambitions)

1. (uncountable, countable) Eager or inordinate desire for some object that confers distinction, as preferment, honor, superiority, political power, or fame; desire to distinguish one's self from other people.

   My daughter, Johanna, wants to be a firefighter very much. She has a lot of ambition.

   • a. 1627 (date written), Francis Bacon, chapter VII, in James Spedding, editor, The Works of Francis Bacon, […]: The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon […], volume IV, London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, published 1858, →OCLC, page 270:

     The third part of practice hath divers branches, but one principal root in these our times, which is the vast and overspreading ambition and usurpation of the see of Rome; […]

   • 1756, [Edmund Burke], A Vindication of Natural Society: Or, A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind from Every Species of Artificial Society. […], London: […] M. Cooper […], →OCLC, page 20:

     One is aſtoniſhed hovv ſuch a ſmall ſpot could furniſh Men ſufficient to ſacrifice to the pitiful Ambition of poſſeſſing five or ſix thouſand more Acres, or tvvo or three more Villages: […]

2. (countable) An object of an ardent desire.

   My ambition is to own a helicopter.

3. A desire, as in (sense 1), for another person to achieve these things.
4. (uncountable) A personal quality similar to motivation, not necessarily tied to a single goal.
5. (obsolete) The act of going about to solicit or obtain an office, or any other object of desire; canvassing.
   • 1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […].”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 22:

     I on th' other ſide / Us'd no ambition to commend my deeds, […]

• ambience
• ambient
• ambit
• ambitious
• ambitionist

ambition (third-person singular simple present ambitions, present participle ambitioning, simple past and past participle ambitioned)

1. To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet.
   • 1746, C Turnbull, The Histories Of Marcus Junianus Justinus:

     Pausanias, ambitioning the sovereignty of Greece, bargains with Xerxes for his daughter in marriage.

• “ambition”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “ambition”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

ambition c

1. ambition

• ambitiøs

• “ambition” in Den Danske Ordbog
• “ambition” in Ordbog over det danske Sprog

ambition

1. genitive singular of ambitio

Learned borrowing from Latin ambitiōnem.

• IPA^(key): /ɑ̃.bi.sjɔ̃/

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ambition f (plural ambitions)

1. ambition (feeling)

• ambitionner

• ambitieux

• “ambition”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

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ambition c

1. ambition

• ambitiös

• ambition in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• ambition in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• ambition in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)