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.

 

© Webster 1913.


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.

 

© Webster 1913.

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