AMBITIOUS • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Ambitious

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adjective

Ambitious adj.

Possessing, or controlled by, ambition; greatly or inordinately desirous of power, honor, office, superiority, or distinction. "Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, And Brutus is an honorable man."

Strongly desirous; followed by of or the infinitive; as, ambitious to be or to do something. "I was not ambitious of seeing this ceremony." "Studious of song, and yet ambitious not to sing in vain."

Springing from, characterized by, or indicating, ambition; showy; aspiring; as, an ambitious style. "A giant statue... Pushed by a wild and artless race, From off wide, ambitious base."

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Etymology of 'Ambitious'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ambitious" Quotes from Famous Books

... naturally you might think that the loss of the will wouldn't amount to much, one way or the other; but it's like this: the governor and I are very different; I know we've got plenty of ducats, and that's enough for me, but not for him; he is ambitious. It has always galled him that we were not in the direct line of descent from the main branch of the Mainwarings; and it has been his one great ambition since the death of old Ralph Mainwaring, Hugh's father, ...

— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... to him, whose life was labor, unproductive use of time was a crime. He thought it a matter of course that his son should become a laboring man like himself, and it is little less than a miracle that this did not happen. The mother, to be sure, fostered the boy's more ambitious hopes; the death of the father in Hebbel's fourteenth year was perhaps a blessing in disguise; undoubtedly the happiest chance in Hebbel's boyhood, so far as external events are concerned, was the fact that he won the favor of a real teacher in his schoolmaster Dethlefsen, ...

— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... of Isaac, in whose name he sued for Rebekah's fair hand. He didn't say that Isaac was handsome, virtuous, talented or ambitious, but he said, "the Lord hath blessed my master and he is very great; and he hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and maid servants and men servants, and camels and asses," and unto his son Isaac "hath he given all that he hath," for this astute man of the world seemed ...

— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... satisfactory to Custer. Being employed by the town gave him an official standing, perhaps not so distinguished as that of a policeman, but still eminently worth while; and Mr. Shrimplin added not a little to the sense of its importance by dilating on the intrigues of ambitious rivals who desired to wrest his contract from him; and he impressed Custer, who frequently accompanied him on his rounds, with the wisdom of keeping the lamps that shone upon the homes of members of the town council in especially good order. Furthermore, there were possibilities ...

— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... of weight and what with the daily ocean swim which we both enjoyed, his cheeks took on color and he became as brown as an Indian. If he had passed the summer at the White Mountains he could not have looked any hardier. He made many friends at the Y.M.C.A. They were all ambitious boys and they woke him up wonderfully. I was careful to follow him closely in this new life and made it a point to see the boys myself and to make him tell me at the end of each day just what he had been about. Dick was a boy I could trust to tell me every detail. He was ...

— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

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