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.

Noun

(en noun)

One who adventures; one who seeks his fortune in new and hazardous or perilous enterprises.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-01

, author=Nancy Langston , title=The Fraught History of a Watery World , volume=101, issue=1, page=59 , magazine= citation , passage=European adventurers found themselves within a watery world, a tapestry of streams, channels, wetlands, lakes and lush riparian meadows enriched by floodwaters from the Mississippi River.}}

A soldier of fortune, a speculator.

A social pretender on the lookout for advancement; one who pushes his fortune by equivocal means, as false pretences.

(video games) A player of adventure games or text adventures.

* 1983 , PC Mag (volume 2, number 2, July 1983, page 351)

Meanwhile, the ranks of adventurers grow, be they manic puzzle-solvers or people like me, who like to look under the Robners' beds just for the hell of it.

* 1992 , Tim Kemp, Microfair Madness'' (game review in ''Your Sinclair issue 75, March 1992)

It's a challenging game for the inexperienced adventurer , and should even give the hardened pros a bit of a run for their money.