Adjective
ambitious (comparative ambitiouser or more ambitious, superlative ambitiousest or most ambitious)
- (of a person or their character) Having or showing ambition; wanting a lot of power, honor, respect, superiority, or other distinction.
an ambitious person
someone's ambitious nature
1829, Edgar Allan Poe, “Tamerlane”, in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems:I was ambitious—have you known
The passion, father? You have not:
A cottager, I mark’d a throne
Of half the world as all my own,
And murmur’d at such lowly lot— […]
1891, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Man with the Twisted Lip:As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the country, and eventually married, without anyone having a suspicion as to my real occupation.
- (followed by "of" or the infinitive) Very desirous
- Resulting from, characterized by, or indicating, ambition
- Synonyms: showy, aspiring
an ambitious project
an ambitious style
an ambitious attempt to take power
an ambitious plan
an ambitious goal
- Hard to achieve.
2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly):A “moving platform” scheme […] is more technologically ambitious than maglev trains even though it relies on conventional rails. Local trains would use side-by-side rails to roll alongside intercity trains and allow passengers to switch trains by stepping through docking bays. This set-up solves several problems […] . Stopping high-speed trains wastes energy and time, so why not simply slow them down enough for a moving platform to pull alongside?
Translations
possessing, or controlled by, ambition
- Albanian: please add this translation if you can
- Arabic: طَمُوح m (ṭamūḥ)
- Armenian: հավակնոտ (hy) (havaknot)
- Basque: please add this translation if you can
- Belarusian: амбіцы́йны (ambicýjny), славалюбі́вы (slavaljubívy), амбі́тны (ambítny)
- Bulgarian: амбицио́зен (bg) (ambiciózen), честолюби́в (bg) (čestoljubív)
- Catalan: ambiciós
- Chamicuro: kapapeskajpola
- Chinese:
- Cantonese: 遠大/远大 (jyun5 daai6)
- Hakka: 遠大/远大 (yén-thai)
- Mandarin: 有雄心 (yǒu xióngxīn), 遠大/远大 (zh) (yuǎndà)
- Czech: ctižádostivý m
- Danish: ambitiøs
- Dutch: eerzuchtig (nl), ambitieus (nl)
- Esperanto: ambicia, glorama
- Estonian: please add this translation if you can
- Finnish: kunnianhimoinen (fi)
- French: ambitieux (fr)
- Galician: ambicioso
- Gallurese: paddinósu
- Georgian: ამბიციური (ambiciuri)
- German: ehrgeizig (de), ambitioniert (de)
- Hebrew: שאפתני m (shaaftaní)
- Hungarian: becsvágyó (hu), nagyravágyó (hu), ambiciózus (hu)
- Italian: ambizioso (it)
- Japanese: 野心的 (ja) (やしんてき, yashinteki)
- Khmer: please add this translation if you can
- Korean: 야심적 (ko) (yasimjeok)
- Latin: ambitiosus m
- Latvian: please add this translation if you can
- Lithuanian: please add this translation if you can
- Luxembourgish: ambitiéis, éiergäizeg
- Malay: please add this translation if you can
- Maltese: ambizzjuż
- Middle English: ambicious
- Polish: ambitny (pl) m
- Portuguese: ambicioso (pt)
- Romanian: ambițios (ro) m
- Russian: амбицио́зный (ru) (ambicióznyj), честолюби́вый (ru) (čestoljubívyj)
- Sardinian:
- Campidanese: ambitziosu
- Logudorese: mattauddone
- Sassarese: ambiziosu
- Scottish Gaelic: dian-thograch, gionach
- Serbo-Croatian: ambiciozan (sh) m, častohlepan (sh)
- Spanish: ambicioso (es)
- Swedish: ambitiös (sv), högtflygande
- Thai: ทะเยอทะยาน (th) (tá-yəə-tá-yaan), มักใหญ่ใฝ่สูง
- Turkish: hırslı (tr) (overly ambitious connotations), hevesli (tr)
- Ukrainian: амбіці́йний (ambicíjnyj), амбі́тний (uk) (ambítnyj), честолю́бний (čestoljúbnyj)
- Vietnamese: có hoài bão, có tham vọng
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Translations to be checked
References
- ambitious in An American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster, 1828.
- “ambitious”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “ambitious”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- "ambitious" in the Wordsmyth Dictionary-Thesaurus (Wordsmyth, 2002)
- "ambitious" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
- “ambitious”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.