ambition
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
8 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "ambition", 8-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "ambition" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "ambition" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
ambition is aEnglishnoun. It means: Eager or inordinate desire for some object that confers distinction, as preferment, honor, superiority, political power, or fame; desire to distinguish one's self from other people. Pronounced /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/. It ranks #8,116 in English word frequency. Often confused with audition and ambitious.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ambition |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #8,116 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for ambition is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,116 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 12 documented wrong-spelling variants for ambition, with forms such as "abmition", "ambbition", and "ambiiton". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "audition", "ambitious", "addition", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ent- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₂énts? Proto-Indo-European *h₂m̥bʰider. Proto-Italic *amβi Latin ambi- Proto-Indo-European *h₁ey- Proto-Indo-European *h₁éyti Proto-Italic *ejō Proto-Italic *eō Latin e… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is ambition, spelled A-M-B-I-T-I-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Eager or inordinate desire for some object that confers distinction, as preferment, honor, superiority, political power, or fame; desire to distinguish one's self from other people.
- 2An object of an ardent desire.
- 3A desire, as in (sense 1), for another person to achieve these things.
- 4A personal quality similar to motivation, not necessarily tied to a single goal.
- 5The act of going about to solicit or obtain an office, or any other object of desire; canvassing.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ent- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₂énts? Proto-Indo-European *h₂m̥bʰider. Proto-Italic *amβi Latin ambi- Proto-Indo-European *h₁ey- Proto-Indo-European *h₁éyti Proto-Italic *ejō Proto-Italic *eō Latin eō Latin ambiō Proto-Indo-European *-tisder. Proto-Italic *-tjō Latin -tiō Latin ambitiōder. Old French ambitionbor. Middle English ambicioun English ambition From Middle English ambicioun, from Old French ambition, from Latin ambitiō (“ambition, a striving for favor, literally 'a going around', especially of candidates for office in Rome soliciting votes”), from ambiō (“I go around, solicit votes”). See ambient, issue.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: abmition,ambbition,ambiiton,ambision,ambitino,ambitionn,ambitoin,ambittion,ambtiion,amibtion,ammbition,mabition
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for ambition
Misspelling Variants of "ambition"
Frequency rank: #8,116 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: