ambitious
🇬🇧 /æˈmbɪʃəs/
🇺🇸 /æˈmbɪʃəs/
📖 Definitions
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adjective
Having or showing a strong desire and determination to succeed, achieve power, wealth, or a high position in life.; Requiring or involving great effort, skill, or resources; designed to achieve something difficult or impressive.; Showing a desire for distinction or recognition; aspiring to something beyond the ordinary.; Overly eager for success or advancement, sometimes implying unscrupulous or excessive desire for power.; Of a work of art, literature, or creative endeavor: attempting to achieve something grand or complex in scope or conception.
🔗 Details
Word forms
Comparative: more ambitious
Superlative: most ambitious
Collocations
ambitious planambitious goalambitious projecthighly ambitiousoverly ambitiousambitious young man
Derivatives
ambitionambitiouslyambitiousnessunambitiousoverambitious
Synonyms
aspiringdrivenenterprisingdeterminedgo-gettingpushing
Antonyms
unambitiouslazyunmotivatedcontentcomplacent
Commonly confused
audacious
EN: 'Audacious' emphasizes boldness and willingness to take risks, while 'ambitious' emphasizes a strong desire to achieve success or high goals.
ambivalent
EN: 'Ambivalent' means having mixed or contradictory feelings about something, which is unrelated to 'ambitious' despite sharing the 'ambi-' prefix.
Spelling tips
EN: Remember the '-ious' ending (not '-eous' or '-ous'). The word contains 'ti' before the ending, which can be confused with '-eous' patterns like 'gorgeous'.
💬 Examples
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She was an ambitious young lawyer who aimed to become a partner by the age of thirty.
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The government launched an ambitious plan to reduce carbon emissions by fifty percent within a decade.
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His ambitious goal of climbing all fourteen eight-thousand-meter peaks seemed almost impossible.
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The ambitious politician would stop at nothing to secure the nomination, even betraying his allies.
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The director's most ambitious film yet spans three centuries and features over two hundred characters.