FromMiddle Englishambitious, fromMiddle Frenchambitieus, fromLatinambitiosus, fromambitio; seeambition. Compare withFrenchambitieux.

• (US)IPA^(key):/æmˈbɪʃ.əs/

• Audio(US):

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• Rhymes:-ɪʃəs

ambitious (comparativeambitiouserormoreambitious,superlativeambitiousestormostambitious)

1. (of a person or their character) Having or showingambition;wanting a lot ofpower,honor, respect, superiority, or other distinction.

   anambitious person

   someone'sambitious nature

   • 1829,Edgar Allan Poe, “Tamerlane”, inAl Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems:

     I wasambitious—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 moreambitious, took a house in the country, and eventually married, without anyone having a suspicion as to my real occupation.

2. (followed by "of" or the infinitive) Verydesirous
   • 30 June 2019, Sam Wallace inThe Telegraph,Manchester United must shape Aaron Wan-Bissaka into a £50m all-rounder - but there is no hiding place at Old Trafford

     Now he is joining a clubambitious to return to a model of dominating games and attacking opposition.

   • 1864,Henry David Thoreau,The Maine Woods:

     We were soon in the midst of the rapids, which were more swift and tumultuous than any we had poled up, and had turned to the side of the stream for the purpose of warping, when the boatmen, who felt some pride in their skill, and wereambitious to do something more than usual

3. Resulting from, characterized by, or indicating, ambition

   Synonyms:showy,aspiring

   anambitious project

   anambitious style

   anambitious attempt to take power

   anambitious plan

   anambitious goal

4. Hard toachieve.
   • 2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, inThe Economist, volume407, number8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly):

     A “moving platform” scheme[…]is more technologicallyambitious 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?

• nonambitious
• unambitious

• ambition

• Noah Webster (1828) “ambitious”, inAn American Dictionary of the English Language: […], volumeI (A–I), New York, N.Y.:[…] S. Converse; printed by Hezekiah Howe […],→OCLC.
• “ambitious”, inWebster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.:G. & C. Merriam,1913,→OCLC.
• “ambitious”, inDictionary.com Unabridged,Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• "ambitious" in theWordsmyth Dictionary-Thesaurus (Wordsmyth, 2002)
• "ambitious" inCambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
• “ambitious”, inLexico,Dictionary.com;Oxford University Press,2019–2022.