Ambitious means hungry to climb high and achieve great things. An ambitious young lawyer, ambitious for her children, too ambitious.
Of a plan it means large and possibly too large: an ambitious target, an ambitious timetable — where the word is a polite warning. Of a person it is praise in a reference and a criticism in a novel, and English has never quite decided which. Ambitious for somebody means wanting success on their behalf. Note overambitious, and that ambitious is one of the words whose tone depends entirely on who is speaking.
1adjectiveambitiousHungry to achieve great things.
“She was ambitious in a way the department found alarming.”
2adjectivelargeLarge and possibly too large, of a plan.
“Building the bridge in a single year is an ambitious target.”
ambitious is a quality of striving.
Latin ambitiosus comes from ambitio, a going around canvassing for votes. To be ambitious was originally to be a candidate working the crowd, which explains the faint suspicion the word has never lost.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁ey-
Latin
ambitiosus
Middle French
ambitieus
Middle English
ambitious
English, today
ambitious
From Middle English ambitious, from Middle French ambitieus, from Latin ambitiosus, from ambitio; see ambition. Compare with French ambitieux. by surface analysis, ambit + -ious.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sharper Adjectives