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Optimism vs Ambition - What's the difference?

optimism | ambition |

As nouns the difference between optimism and ambition

is that optimism is a tendency to expect the best, or at least, a favourable outcome while ambition is 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.

As a verb ambition is

to seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet.

optimism

English

Noun

(en-noun) (wikipedia optimism)
  • a tendency to expect the best, or at least, a favourable outcome
    • I love her youth, her beauty and above all her optimism that everything will turn out fine.
  • the doctrine that this world is the best of all possible worlds
  • the belief that good will eventually triumph over evil

    • Antonyms

    * pessimism

    Derived terms

    * optimist

    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.

    Quotations

    (English Citations of "ambition")

    Related terms

    * ambience * ambient * ambit * ambitious * ambitionist

    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.

    External links

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