different between ambition vs eagerness

English

Etymology

From Middle English ambicion, from Old French ambition, from Latin ambiti? (“ambition, a striving for favor, literally 'a going around', especially of candidates for office in Rome soliciting votes”), from ambi? (“I go around, solicit votes”). See ambient, issue.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /æm?b?.??n/

Noun

ambition (countable and uncountable, plural ambitions)

1. (uncountable, countable) 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.
   • 1756, Edmund Burke, A Vindication of Natural Society

     the pitiful ambition of possessing five or six thousand more acres

2. (countable) An object of an ardent desire.

3. A desire, as in (sense 1), for another person to achieve these things.
4. (uncountable) A personal quality similar to motivation, not necessarily tied to a single goal.
5. (obsolete) The act of going about to solicit or obtain an office, or any other object of desire; canvassing.

Quotations

For quotations using this term, see Citations:ambition.

Related terms

• ambience
• ambient
• ambit
• ambitious
• ambitionist

Translations

Verb

ambition (third-person singular simple present ambitions, present participle ambitioning, simple past and past participle ambitioned)

1. To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet.
   • 1746, C Turnbull, The Histories Of Marcus Junianus Justinus

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

Further reading

• ambition in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• ambition in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Danish

Noun

ambition c

1. ambition

Declension

Related terms

• ambitiøs

Further reading

• “ambition” in Den Danske Ordbog
• “ambition” in Ordbog over det danske Sprog

Finnish

Noun

ambition

1. Genitive singular form of ambitio.

French

Etymology

From Latin ambiti?

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??.bi.sj??/

Noun

ambition f (plural ambitions)

1. ambition (feeling)

Related terms

• ambitieux
• ambitionner

Further reading

• “ambition” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Swedish

Pronunciation

Noun

ambition c

1. en ambition

Declension

Related terms

• ambitiös

English

Alternative forms

• eagreness (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English egernesse, egrenesse; equivalent to eager +? -ness.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?i??n?s/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?i???n?s/
• Hyphenation: ea?ger?ness

Noun

eagerness (usually uncountable, plural eagernesses)

1. The state or quality of being eager; ardent desire.
   • 1909: Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

     The things he had to tell about...were enough to make you almost tremble with excitement, when you heard all the intimate details from an animal charmer and realized with what thrilling eagerness and anxiety the whole busy underworld was working.

2. (obsolete) Tartness; sourness

Translations

Anagrams

• Gerasenes, eagreness, green seas, sea greens