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Obsess vs Ambition - What's the difference?

obsess | ambition |

As a verb obsess

is to be preoccupied with a single topic or emotion.

As a noun ambition is

ambition for some particular achievement.

obsess

English

Verb

(es)
  • To be preoccupied with a single topic or emotion.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-21, volume=411, issue=8892, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Magician’s brain , passage=The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason. The architect of modern science was himself not very modern. He was obsessed with alchemy.}}
  • (label) To dominate the thoughts of someone.
  • To think or talk obsessively about.
  • 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.