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Spite vs Ambition - What's the difference?

spite | ambition |

As nouns the difference between spite and ambition

is that spite is ill will or hatred toward another, accompanied with the disposition to irritate, annoy, or thwart; a desire to vex or injure; petty malice; grudge; rancor while ambition is ambition for some particular achievement.

As a verb spite

is to treat maliciously; to try to injure or thwart.

As a preposition spite

is notwithstanding; despite.

spite

English

Etymology 1

From a shortening of (etyl) despit, from (etyl) despit (whence despite). Compare also Dutch spijt.

Noun

(en-noun)
  • Ill will or hatred toward another, accompanied with the disposition to irritate, annoy, or thwart; a desire to vex or injure; petty malice; grudge; rancor.
    • He was so filled with spite for his ex-wife, he could not hold down a job.
    They did it just for spite .
  • * Shakespeare
    • This is the deadly spite that angers.
  • (obsolete) Vexation; chagrin; mortification.
    • "The time is out of joint: O cursed spite." Shakespeare, Hamlet

    Verb

    (spit)
  • To treat maliciously; to try to injure or thwart.
    • She soon married again, to spite her ex-husband.
  • (obsolete) To be angry at; to hate.
    • The Danes, then pagans, spited places of religion. — Fuller.
  • To fill with spite; to offend; to vex.
    • Darius, spited at the Magi, endeavoured to abolish not only their learning, but their language. — Sir. W. Temple.
    Related terms
    * spiteful * in spite of * despite

    See also

    * malignant * malicious

    Etymology 2

    Preposition

    (English prepositions)
  • Notwithstanding; despite.

    • Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    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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