ambitious
adjective
Simple meaning
Wanting a lot of power, honor, respect, superiority, or other distinction.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ambishuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
æmˈbɪʃəs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
of a person or their character
Having or showing ambition; wanting a lot of power, honor, respect, superiority, or other distinction.
Resulting from, characterized by, or indicating, ambition
followed by "of" or the infinitive
Very desirous
Hard to achieve.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (of a person or their character) Having or showing ambition; wanting a lot of power, honor, respect, superiority, or other distinction.
Used this way, ambitious is a reasonably familiar word with a mildly favourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Positive and appreciative
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use ambitious
- “She was an ambitious student, always striving for excellence in her studies.”
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: having or showing ambition
Antonyms
Sense: having or showing ambition
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.