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an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment:
too much ambition caused him to be disliked by his colleagues.
the object, state, or result desired or sought after:
the crown was his ambition.
desire for work or activity; energy:
i awoke feeling tired and utterly lacking in ambition.
to seek after earnestly; aspire to.
historical examples

for a hindu to rise from his inherited caste is next to impossible, and this tends to make the hindus an ambitionless race.
east of suez frederic courtland penfield

could this vapid and ambitionless -ssembly produce real men?
the barrier allen french

a wonderful waking dream of joy overflooding years of ambitionless ease; of the damory court that should be in days to come.
the valiants of virginia hallie erminie rives

years in the factory had made them dead, listless, soulless and ambitionless creatures.
the bishop of cottontown john trotwood moore

her marriage to this easy-going, ambitionless, though generous prince had been a failure.
myths & legends of our new possessions & protectorate charles m. skinner

mischief is sure to crop up, in one form or another, among the idle and ambitionless.
aunt jane’s nieces in society edith van dyne

the shepherd’s life in the far west is as uninteresting, ambitionless, and lonely an existence as falls to the lot of man.
cattle-ranch to college russell doubleday

when i came, los angeles was a sleepy, ambitionless adobe village with very little promise for the future.
sixty years in southern california 1853-1913 harris newmark

lazy and ambitionless, they are incapable of uniting their tribal forces.
the little lady of lagunitas richard henry savage

noun
strong desire for success, achievement, or distinction
something so desired; goal; aim
n.

mid-14c., from middle french ambition or directly from latin ambitionem (nominative ambitio) “a going around,” especially to solicit votes, hence “a striving for favor, courting, flattery; a desire for honor, thirst for popularity,” noun of action from past participle stem of ambire “to go around” (see ambient).

rarely used in the literal sense in english, where it carries the secondary latin sense of “eager or inordinate desire of honor or preferment.” in early use always pejorative, of inordinate or overreaching desire; ambition was grouped with pride and vainglory.