ambitious
/æmˈbɪʃ.əs/
ambitious adjective: having or showing ambition; wanting a lot of power, honor, respect, superiority, or other distinction.
Adjective
ambitious (comparative ambitiouser or more ambitious, superlative ambitiousest or most ambitious)
- Having or showing ambition; wanting a lot of power, honor, respect, superiority, or other distinction.
- an ambitious person
- someone's ambitious nature
- Very desirous.
- 30 June 2019, Sam Wallace in The 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 club ambitious to return to a model of dominating games and attacking opposition. - 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 were ambitious to do something more than usual1864, Henry David Thoreau, The Maine Woods
- 30 June 2019, Sam Wallace in The Telegraph, Manchester United must shape Aaron Wan-Bissaka into a £50m all-rounder - but there is no hiding place at Old Trafford
- Resulting from, characterized by, or indicating, ambition.
- an ambitious project
- an ambitious style
- Synonyms:
- showy, aspiring, grand, aspirational
- Hard to achieve.
- an ambitious goal
- 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...2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly)
ambitious meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
ambitious in Hindi
- ambitious
- महत्वाकांक्षी mahatvākāṅkṣī
ambitious in Tamil
- லட்சியமானவர், லட்சியமிக்கவர்
ambitious in Marathi
- महत्त्वाकांक्षी, महत्वाकांक्षी
ambitious in Urdu
- بلند نظر, جاہ طلب, خواہش مند
More languagesFewer languages
- ambitious in Bengali
- উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষী uccakaṅkhi
- ambitious in Malayalam
- ഉൽക്കർഷേച്ഛയുള്ള, തീവ്രഉൽക്കർഷേച്ഛയുള്ള, അഹംപൂർവ്വ, ഉത്ക്കർഷകാംക്ഷയുള്ള
- ambitious in Kannada
- ಮಹತ್ವಾಕಾಂಕ್ಷೆಯ, ಮಹತ್ವಾಕಾಂಕ್ಷಿ
- ambitious in Gujarati
- મહત્ત્વાકાંક્ષી, મહત્વકાંક્ષી
- ambitious in Odia
- ଉଚ୍ଚାଭିଳାଷୀ, ମହତ୍ୱାକାଂକ୍ଷୀ
- ambitious in Nepali
- महत्वाकांक्षी, महत्वाकाङ्क्षी, महत्त्वाकांक्षी
- ambitious in Arabic
- طَمُوح ṭamūḥ
- ambitious in Thai
- ทะเยอทะยาน tá-yəə-tá-yaan, มักใหญ่ใฝ่สูง
- ambitious in Vietnamese
- có hoài bão, có tham vọng
Examples of ambitious in a sentence
- an ambitious attempt to take power
- 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.1891, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Man with the Twisted Lip:
- A “moving platform” scheme[…]is more technologically ambitious than maglev trains even though it relies on conventional rails.2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly):
Synonyms of ambitious
Antonyms
Forms of ambitious
| comparative | ambitiouser |
|---|---|
| comparative | more ambitious |
| superlative | ambitiousest |
| superlative | most ambitious |
Origin of ambitious
From Middle English ambitious, from Middle French ambitieus, from Latin ambitiosus, from ambitio; see ambition. Compare with French ambitieux. By surface analysis, ambit + -ious.
Words formed from ambitious
Words that rhyme with ambitious
Questions about ambitious
- What does ambitious mean?
- Ambitious means having or showing ambition; wanting a lot of power, honor, respect, superiority, or other distinction.
- What is ambitious in Hindi?
- Ambitious in Hindi is महत्वाकांक्षी (mahatvākāṅkṣī). See Ambitious meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use ambitious in a sentence?
- an ambitious attempt to take power
- What part of speech is ambitious?
- Ambitious is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce ambitious?
- Ambitious is pronounced /æmˈbɪʃ.əs/ (US).
Words near ambitious in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ambitious (page history and authors); महत्वाकांक्षी (Hindi) (page history and authors); ambitious (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ambitious (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ambitious (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষী (Bengali) (page history and authors); ambitious (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); ambitious (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ambitious (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ambitious (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ambitious (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-ambitious.ogg.
Cite this entry: “ambitious.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ambitious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.