• (America) IPA: /æmˈbɪ.ʃən/

ambition

1. (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.

   My son, John, wants to be a firefighter very much. He has a lot of ambition.

   • the pitiful ambition of possessing five or six thousand more acres

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: Printed by J. M[acock] for John Starkey […], OCLC 228732398 ↗, [https://archive.org/stream/paradiseregaindp00milt_0#page/{}/mode/1up page 22]:

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

• ambience
• ambient
• ambit
• ambitious
• ambitionist

• French: ambition
• German: Ehrgeiz
• Portuguese: ambição
• Russian: амби́ция
• Spanish: ambición

• Portuguese: ambição
• Russian: цель
• Spanish: ambición

• Spanish: ambición

• Italian: ambizione
• Portuguese: ambição
• Russian: амби́ция
• Spanish: ambición

ambition (ambitions, present participle ambitioning; past and past participle ambitioned)

1. To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet.

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