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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
ambition
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
fulfilling...ambition
▪ Being deaf hasn’t stopped Karen fulfilling her ambition to be a hairdresser.
lifelong ambition
▪ David finally realized his lifelong ambition.
nurse a grudge/grievance/ambition etc
▪ For years he had nursed a grievance against his former employer.
pursue your ambitions
▪ David left the company to pursue his political ambitions.
realized...ambition
▪ She never realized her ambition of winning an Olympic gold medal.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
big
▪ But her annoyance over the pictures could not distract Catherine from her latest - and biggest - ambition.
▪ The speech marked Ventura's decision to withdraw into Minnesota politics following his unsuccessful flirtations with bigger ambitions.
▪ But the ski instructress died trying to fulfill her biggest ambition - to visit the Everest base camp.
▪ Angelopoulos has made an indulgent, at times breathtaking film with big ambitions.
▪ Tall, dark, handsome and eloquent, our hero cuts a dashing figure in the little city with big ambitions.
burning
▪ His own unashamed, burning ambition is' to make money.
▪ Bruce was a short, stocky man with red hair and a burning ambition.
▪ You see, she had this burning ambition to succeed on the stage.
▪ But they didn't reckon with her burning ambition to win a third time.
▪ It hadn't been an easy task, and in spite of his burning ambition and will to succeed.
▪ To achieve that status, a player needs - besides a natural talent - a burning inner ambition.
▪ He had no burning ambition to climb to the upper reaches of management in those early days, however.
▪ It was this burning ambition that I took with me into 1986.
great
▪ He had believed that a country girl like her would find him wonderful, a college man with great ambitions.
▪ Yet it really happened and I deeply appreciate his articulation of my greatest ambition as a baker.
▪ So do not be disappointed if you fail to receive a windfall or secure your greatest ambition.
▪ Ivan Lendl will not achieve his last great ambition - to be Wimbledon Singles Champion. 8.
▪ But even his critics admit that he is not a man of great ambition.
▪ But events in the region had offended the West's democratic sensibilities and aroused fears of greater Soviet ambitions.
▪ His greatest ambition was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer.
▪ You could achieve your greatest ambition, Mikhail - space, the stars.
high
▪ None the less, his tennis has high ambitions.
▪ This is a high ambition for a book targeted at the general reader.
▪ It is often the case that the highest ambitions can be born in the darkest days of defeat.
lifelong
▪ It's taken artist, Chris Fiddes, 60 days to complete, the realisation of a lifelong ambition.
▪ She says it's been a lifelong ambition to work with horses.
▪ Stephen admits he's unlikely to realise his lifelong ambition of playing for Aston Villa.
▪ In 1990, however, David finally realised his lifelong ambition.
personal
▪ As long as individuals are different and have personal aims, ambitions and needs they will seek to achieve those for themselves.
▪ His background helps, perhaps, to explain his personal ambition and drive.
▪ He feels no need to conceal his personal ambition.
▪ The 15 Democrats left behind accused Saunders and his four Democratic supporters of putting personal ambition before principle.
▪ Crossing the Sahara was a personal ambition and all the rules were self-made.
▪ It's also a personal ambition to go around the circuit.
▪ We are interested in the social implications of personal ambition, greed, anger and hatred.
▪ Anyhow, I had no personal ambition.
political
▪ For her sake, Harry had abandoned his political ambitions, and had become a simple man of the church.
▪ Yeltsin fumed at questions of whether the nuclear summit and surrounding meetings were tailored to his political ambitions.
▪ The political ambitions of the working class had normally been channelled through parliamentary and constitutional routeways.
▪ And he was that greater rarity, a Moses without political ambition.
▪ He is just 50 and apparently at the limits of his political ambition.
▪ This experience shaped the political ambition that led ultimately to his coup of 23 July 1952.
▪ They say they consider him uncorrupted, and are impressed by his relative lack of political ambition.
▪ He had political ambitions, and knew how to make friends at Tammany Hall.
presidential
▪ He resigned as Defence Secretary in July 1991 in order to pursue his presidential ambitions.
▪ There are already about a dozen people with presidential ambitions.
▪ Kemp and Gore served in Congress together and had seen their presidential ambitions sidetracked in 1988.
▪ Mr Balladur denies presidential ambitions, but such figures are enough to turn anyone's head.
▪ However, for this and other reasons, he renounced presidential ambitions.
▪ Every vice president has presidential ambitions, of course.
territorial
▪ Belpan had little crime, no enemies, nothing worth stealing, and no territorial ambitions.
▪ Although Britain had long had trading connections with these areas, hitherto she had had no territorial ambitions there.
■ VERB
achieve
▪ He has at last achieved his ambition to look both indistinguishable and distinctive.
▪ He had achieved his life's ambition.
▪ Would she herself end up like that, if she achieved her ambition of becoming the managing editor of a magazine?
▪ Ivan Lendl will not achieve his last great ambition - to be Wimbledon Singles Champion. 8.
▪ It was not until last year that I achieved my ambition to sail there.
▪ Five days later Vernage was to achieve his gruesome ambition to kill a policeman.
become
▪ Both books, written out of what had gradually become a burning ambition, were however nothing more than starters.
burn
▪ Both books, written out of what had gradually become a burning ambition, were however nothing more than starters.
▪ He had married a woman with burning social ambition, twenty years his junior.
▪ But, even at 40, he still burns with ambition to dump Indy racing and make a Grand Prix come-back.
drive
▪ He was driven by an enormous ambition and unrelenting ego, making him a living symbol of black self-determination.
▪ Schuster -- is spinning out of control, driven by the mercurial ambitions of the 72-year-old Redstone.
fulfil
▪ Maria Aznar, fulfilled his long-standing ambition to win promotion to the status of a large medium-sized country.
▪ In part, this was because she had fulfilled her ministerial ambitions.
▪ He offered his services to the Edinburgh Missionary Society as an overseas candidate, thus fulfilling a youthful ambition.
▪ The male has fulfilled his ambition of bigamy at the expense of a female.
▪ To fulfil this ambition he was prepared to go to any lengths, nomatterhow underhand or devious they might be.
▪ While their four children were growing up, she put off fulfilling her ambition to run an antique shop of her own.
▪ This is an excellent time of year to fulfil your ambitions!
▪ Since then he has fulfilled many ambitions, learned new skills and tested his courage and physical fitness to the limit.
fulfill
▪ He offered his services to the Edinburgh Missionary Society as an overseas candidate, thus fulfilling a youthful ambition.
▪ However, some work is discretionary, taken on to fulfill ambitions or to purchase unnecessary luxuries.
▪ While their four children were growing up, she put off fulfilling her ambition to run an antique shop of her own.
▪ The siege had shown that, with artillery, Henry V had the capability of fulfilling his military ambition.
▪ But the ski instructress died trying to fulfill her biggest ambition - to visit the Everest base camp.
lack
▪ She questioned whether what they lacked was not ruthless ambition.
▪ Who had said he lacked ambition?
▪ Or will his lack of ambition drive you to distraction?
▪ I suppose I lacked serious ambition.
nurse
▪ More crucial, in the president's eyes, is the fact that Se guin may be nursing other ambitions.
play
▪ He had no ambitions to play Hook and certainly not at four days' notice.
▪ My main ambition is to play something magical on the piano.
▪ Stephen admits he's unlikely to realise his lifelong ambition of playing for Aston Villa.
realise
▪ With care, you can realise all your ambitions without lifting a finger.
▪ Stephen admits he's unlikely to realise his lifelong ambition of playing for Aston Villa.
realize
▪ All those who made it possible for me to realize a lifetime's ambition.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
burning ambition/desire/need etc
▪ Both books, written out of what had gradually become a burning ambition, were however nothing more than starters.
▪ Bruce was a short, stocky man with red hair and a burning ambition.
▪ But they didn't reckon with her burning ambition to win a third time.
▪ His own unashamed, burning ambition is' to make money.
▪ I just have never had a burning desire to practice law.
▪ It hadn't been an easy task, and in spite of his burning ambition and will to succeed.
▪ The second time, it was a passion, a burning desire.
▪ You see, she had this burning ambition to succeed on the stage.
driving ambition
▪ Talented but without driving ambition, Lehmann was during his last years handicapped by Parkinson's disease.
▪ Thus, with each page, she becomes increasingly unattractive and vainglorious - brains and spirit corrupted by driving ambition.
vaulting ambition
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ "Your problem," said Arthur, "is that you have no ambition."
▪ Earlier this year, he achieved his ambition of competing in the Olympic games.
▪ Eric wasn't particularly intelligent but he had plenty of ambition.
▪ Getting to the top hadn't been easy, in spite of his burning ambition and will to succeed.
▪ Her ambition was to go to law school and become an attorney.
▪ Kasich is thought to have grand political ambitions.
▪ My teachers always told me that I lacked ambition, and would never get anywhere.
▪ What can you do with a kid who has no ambition?
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But his ambition had its limits.
▪ But I do think as long as you've got ambitions in life you can do anything you want.
▪ But the shamelessness of her ambition was nothing compared with Farin a's.
▪ I hardly dared formulate my ambition to myself.
▪ She had early ambitions to be a marine biologist, and always claimed that lack of formal educational opportunity prevented her.
▪ The words came over clearly but cautiously: Leslie Brent was denied his ambition to be a cook.
▪ Unfortunately, his skills and ambition have not yielded any meaningful understanding of the region.
▪ Yeltsin fumed at questions of whether the nuclear summit and surrounding meetings were tailored to his political ambitions.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Ambition

Ambition \Am*bi"tion\, n. [F. ambition, L. ambitio a going around, especially of candidates for office is Rome, to solicit votes (hence, desire for office or honor), fr. ambire to go around. See Ambient, Issue.]

  1. The act of going about to solicit or obtain an office, or any other object of desire; canvassing. [Obs.]

    [I] used no ambition to commend my deeds.
    --Milton.

  2. An eager, and sometimes an inordinate, desire for preferment, honor, superiority, power, or the attainment of something.

    Cromwell, I charge thee, fling a way ambition: By that sin fell the angels.
    --Shak.

    The pitiful ambition of possessing five or six thousand more acres.
    --Burke.

Ambition

Ambition \Am*bi"tion\, v. t. [Cf. F. ambitionner.] To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet. [R.]

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

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
ambition

mid-14c., from Middle French ambition or directly from Latin ambitionem (nominative ambitio) "a going around," especially to solicit votes, hence "a striving for favor, courting, flattery; a desire for honor, thirst for popularity," noun of action from past participle stem of ambire "to go around" (see ambient).\n

\nRarely used in the literal sense in English, where it carries the secondary Latin sense of "eager or inordinate desire of honor or preferment." In early use always pejorative, of inordinate or overreaching desire; ambition was grouped with pride and vainglory.

Wiktionary
ambition

n. 1 (context uncountable countable English) 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. 2 (context countable English) An object of an ardent desire. 3 A desire, as in (sense 1), for another person to achieve these things. 4 (context uncountable English) A personal quality similar to motivation, not necessarily tied to a single goal. 5 (context obsolete English) The act of going about to solicit or obtain an office, or any other object of desire; canvassing. vb. To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet.

WordNet
ambition
  1. n. a cherished desire; "his ambition is to own his own business" [syn: aspiration, dream]

  2. a strong drive for success [syn: ambitiousness]

  3. v. have as one's ambition

Wikipedia
Ambition (film)

Ambición is a 1939 Argentine film directed by Adelqui Migliar and written by José B. Cairola. The film starred Floren Delbene and Fanny Navarro. It was the first film of Armando Bo.

Ambition

Ambition, Ambitions or Ambitious may refer to:

Ambition (Tommy Shaw album)

Originally released on Atlantic Records in 1987, Ambition is former Styx guitarist/vocalist Tommy Shaw's third solo album release. It was produced by Terry Thomas (from the rock band, Charlie) and has a very fluid and melodic sound with rich synthesizer chords and sequences. The album was re-released on American Beat Records in 2007.

Ambition (charity)

Ambition (formerly known as Clubs for Young People) is a registered charity whose members are a network of umbrella youth organisations in cities, counties and countries throughout the UK. Through its network Ambition works with more than 3,500 voluntary youth clubs, youth groups and projects across the United Kingdom, supporting over 350,000 young people.

Ambition works directly with its member organisations to help facilitate the delivery of quality of youth services and also influences national and local government to support youth clubs.

The current Chief Executive is Helen Marshall.

Ambition (Wale album)

Ambition is the second studio album by American hip hop artist Wale. It was released on November 1, 2011, by Maybach Music Group and Warner Bros. Records. It is the follow-up to his debut album, Attention Deficit, which was released in 2009. The album features guest appearances from Rick Ross, Lloyd, Ne-Yo, Big Sean, Miguel, Meek Mill, Kid Cudi, and Jeremih. The album was supported by four official singles— "Chain Music", "Bait", Lotus Flower Bomb" and "Sabotage", along with the promotional singles "Bad Girls Club" and "Focused". Ambition received generally positive reviews from music critics. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 164,000 copies in its first week of release. As of June, 2013, the album has sold over 482,000 copies in the United States.

Ambition (fragrance)

Ambition is the third women's fragrance created by American pop/ R&B singer, songwriter Jordin Sparks alongside CPL Aromas & Preferred Fragrance, endorsed by Jordin Sparks. The product was released exclusively to Bon-Ton Department Stores nationwide on November 8, 2012 in store and online. Ambition... was Preceded by two additional releases. her first fragrance " Because of You..." and her second fragrance " Fascinate". Each scent was followed with its own Eau De Parfum release and multiple gift sets.

Ambition (novel)

Ambition is the first novel by Julie Burchill published in 1989 hardback and 1990 paperback, ISBN 9780552135580.

It tells the story of the ambitious if unimaginatively named Susan Street and her efforts to become a newspaper editor. To achieve her goal she is set a number of tasks by a press magnate. These involve her flying around the world to have sex with a large number of men and women while he looks on.

Ambition (TV series)

Ambition is a Hong Kong thriller television series produced by TVB and starring Gallen Lo, Amy Kwok, Michael Tao and Wong Wai. The series was produced in 1992 and was released overseas in 1993 before airing locally on TVB Jade in 1996.

Usage examples of "ambition".

They abjured and abhorred the name of Roman citizens, which had formerly excited the ambition of mankind.

Under the reign of Justinian, they acknowledged the god and the emperor of the Romans, and seven fortresses were built in the most accessible passages, to exclude the ambition of the Persian monarch.

I petitioned for a cup of chill aconite, My descent to awful Hades had been soft, for now must I go With the curse by father Zeus cast on ambition immoderate.

Tyrold did justice to the sincerity of this offer: and the cheerful acquiescence of lessened reluctance, raised her higher in that esteem to which her constant mind invariably looked up, as the summit of her chosen ambition.

But these pompous titles, instead of gratifying the vanity of the Persian, served only to admonish him of his duty, and to inflame in his soul and shoulder the ambition of restoring in their full splendor, the religion and empire of Cyrus.

Nations thus tempted to interfere are not always able to resist the counsels of seeming expediency and ungenerous ambition, although measures adopted under such influences seldom fail to be unfortunate and injurious to those adopting them.

This letter, it is true, was written previously to the interview at Erfurt, when Napoleon, to avoid alarming Russia, made his ambition appear to slumber.

She had always seen him before as a tiresome, self-important man who lived for his work and his Aldermanic ambition.

In a grey cloak and a round, grey hat with gold cords, followed closely by two shadowy attendant figures, he stepped briskly amain, eager to open those gates across the path of his ambition, locked against him hitherto by the very hands from which he now went to receive the key.

John guessed that the Anointed did, indeed, equate physical strength with ambition and power, and allowed no big strong men into positions of power lest they one day overthrow him.

For the present, all mutual jealousies, all the burning ambitions, all quarrels and hate, are submitted to the arbitrament of the sword.

The patriotic Cyprian, who ruled with the most absolute sway the church of Carthage and the provincial synods, opposed with resolution and success the ambition of the Roman pontiff, artfully connected his own cause with that of the eastern bishops, and, like Hannibal, sought out new allies in the heart of Asia.

Romania and Anatolia, so often torn asunder by private ambition, were animated by a strong and invincible tendency of cohesion.

Spurred on by their avariciousness and vaulting ambition, they had endeavored to wrest her empire away from her in the most underhanded way, seriously underestimating her in the process.

Ambition nor avarice, nor yet craving after luxury, disturb their contented souls or drag them away from the non-progressive round of simple life bequeathed them by their fathers.