Ambition vs Zealous - What's the difference?
ambition | zealous |
(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.
* Burke
(countable) An object of an ardent desire.
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
To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet.
Full of zeal; ardent, fervent; exhibiting enthusiasm or strong passion.
* 1791 , , volume 1, page 238:
* 1896 , , A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (2004 edition), page 122:
* 1940 , Foster Rhea Dulles, America Learns to Play: A history of popular recreation, 1607-1940 , page 61:
* 2011 April 4, "
As a noun ambition
is ambition for some particular achievement.As an adjective zealous is
full of zeal; ardent, fervent; exhibiting enthusiasm or strong passion.ambition
English
Noun
(en-noun)- My son, John, wants to be a firefighter very much. He has a lot of ambition .
- the pitiful ambition of possessing five or six thousand more acres
- My ambition is to own a helicopter.
- [I] used no ambition to commend my deeds.
Quotations
(English Citations of "ambition")Verb
(en verb)- Pausanias, ambitioning the sovereignty of Greece, bargains with Xerxes for his daughter in marriage. — Trumbull.
External links
* * ----zealous
English
Alternative forms
* zelousAdjective
(en adjective)- Johnson was truly zealous for the success of "The Adventurer;" and very soon after his engaging in it, he wrote the following letter:
- Doubtless many will exclaim against the Roman Catholic Church for this; but the simple truth is that Protestantism was no less zealous against the new scientific doctrine.
- and there were few more zealous dancers at the fashionable balls in the Raleigh Tavern at Williamsburg.
Newt Gingrich," Time (retrieved 9 Sept 2013):
- Newt Gingrich . . . left Congress in 1998, following GOP midterm-election losses that many blamed on his zealous pursuit of Bill Clinton's impeachment.
