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Ambition vs Adventure - What's the difference?

ambition | adventure |

As nouns the difference between ambition and adventure

is that ambition is ambition for some particular achievement while adventure is the encountering of risks; hazardous and striking enterprise; a bold undertaking, in which hazards are to be encountered, and the issue is staked upon unforeseen events; a daring feat.

As a verb adventure is

to risk or hazard; jeopard; venture.

ambition

English

Noun

(en-noun)
  • (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.
  • My son, John, wants to be a firefighter very much. He has a lot of ambition .
  • * Burke
  • the pitiful ambition of possessing five or six thousand more acres
  • (countable) An object of an ardent desire.
  • My ambition is to own a helicopter.
  • A desire, as in (sense 1), for another person to achieve these things.
  • (uncountable) A personal quality similar to motivation, not necessarily tied to a single goal.
  • (obsolete) The act of going about to solicit or obtain an office, or any other object of desire; canvassing.
  • * Milton
  • [I] used no ambition to commend my deeds.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet.
  • Pausanias, ambitioning the sovereignty of Greece, bargains with Xerxes for his daughter in marriage. — Trumbull.

    adventure

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) aventure, aunter, anter, from (etyl) aventure, from , which in the Romance languages took the sense of "to happen, befall" (see also advene).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The encountering of risks; hazardous and striking enterprise; a bold undertaking, in which hazards are to be encountered, and the issue is staked upon unforeseen events; a daring feat.
  • * Macaulay
  • He loved excitement and adventure .
  • A remarkable occurrence; a striking event; a stirring incident; as, the adventures of one's life.
  • (Francis Bacon)
  • A mercantile or speculative enterprise of hazard; a venture; a shipment by a merchant on his own account.
  • (video games) A text adventure or an adventure game.
  • * 1984 , Spyplane'' (review, in ''Crash , issue 4, May 1984) [http://www.crashonline.org.uk/04/spyplne.htm]
  • The first thing to strike me about Spyplane was that it is more like a verbal simulation than an adventure .
  • * 1988 , Mike Gerrard, The Guild Of Thieves'' (review, in ''Your Sinclair , issue 29, May 1988) [http://www.ysrnry.co.uk/articles/theguildofthieves.htm]
  • To sum up, I think this is definitely one of the best adventures around for the Spectrum now, along with Gnome Ranger
  • * 1992 , Larry Horsfield, The SU Guide to Playing and Writing Adventure Games'' (in ''Sinclair User magazine, issue 128, October 1992)
  • Before you sit down in front of your Speccy to play an adventure , equip yourself with a pencil, eraser and plenty of paper. This so that you may draw a 'map' of the adventure as you move around.
  • (obsolete) That which happens without design; chance; hazard; hap; hence, chance of danger or loss.
  • * Milton
  • Nay, a far less good to man it will be found, if she must, at all adventures , be fastened upon him individually.
  • (obsolete) Risk; danger; peril.
  • * Berners
  • He was in great adventure of his life.
    Derived terms
    * (remarkable occurrence) boredom
    Antonyms
    * abstention, peradventure, unadventurous

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) aventuren, auntren, which from (etyl) aventurer, from aventure.

    Verb

    (adventur)
  • To risk or hazard; jeopard; venture.
  • * Bible, Acts xix. 31
  • He would not adventure himself into the theatre.
  • To venture upon; to run the risk of; to dare.
  • * Bunyan
  • Yet they adventured to go back.
  • * J. Taylor
  • Discriminations might be adventured .
  • To try the chance; to take the risk.
  • * '>citation
  • Derived terms
    * adventurer * adventuresome * adventuress * adventurous * adventurously * adventurousness

    References

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