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Webster 1913 Edition

Ambition

Am-bi′tion

,
Noun.
[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.
Shakespeare
The pitiful
ambition
of possessing five or six thousand more acres.
Burke.

Am-bi′tion

,
Verb.
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 1828 Edition

Ambition

AMBI'TION

,
Noun.
[L. ambitio, from ambio, to go about, or to seek by making interest, of amb, about, and eo, to go. See Ambages. This word had its origin in the practice of Roman candidates for office, who went about the city to solicit votes.]
A desire of preferment, or of honor; a desire of excellence or superiority. It is used in a good sense; as, emulation may spring from a laudable ambition. It denotes also an inordinate desire of power, or eminence, often accompanied with illegal means to obtain the object. It is sometimes followed by of; as, a man has an ambition of wit. Milton has used the word in the Latin sense of going about, or attempting; but this sense is hardly legitimate.

AMBI'TION

,
Verb.
T.
Ambitiously to seek after. [Little used.]

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