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Ambitious vs Challenging - What's the difference?

ambitious | challenging |

As adjectives the difference between ambitious and challenging

is that ambitious is possessing, or controlled by ambition; greatly or inordinately desirous of power, honor, office, superiority, or distinction while challenging is difficult, hard to do.

As a verb challenging is

present participle of lang=en.

As a noun challenging is

the act of making a challenge.

ambitious

English

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • Possessing, or controlled by ambition; greatly or inordinately desirous of power, honor, office, superiority, or distinction.
  • * 1891 , , "The Man with the Twisted Lip,"
    • As I grew richer I grew more ambitious , took a house in the country, and eventually married, without anyone having a suspicion as to my real occupation.
  • Strongly desirous—followed by "of" or the infinitive; as, ambitious to be or to do something.
  • Springing from, characterized by, or indicating, ambition; showy; aspiring.
  • Hard to achieve.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
    • , page=13 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist) , title= Ideas coming down the track , passage=A “moving platform” scheme

    Usage notes

    * Said of people, projects, plans, goals, etc.

    Derived terms

    * ambitiously * ambitiousness * overambitious

    Related terms

    * ambition

    References

    * * * * * " ambitious" in the Wordsmyth Dictionary-Thesaurus (Wordsmyth, 2002) * " ambitious" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007) * " ambitious" in Compact Oxford English Dictionary , (Oxford University Press, 2007)

    challenging

    English

    Verb

    (head)

    • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Difficult, hard to do.

    • Antonyms

    * unchallenging

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of making a challenge.
  • * Estcourt Rowland Metzner, The conflict of tax laws (page 151)
    • There are always sincere challengings of the findings, always the objections (sincere in another sense) of those whose interests seem threatened.

    See also

    * challenge