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. | 
