Ambitious means having strong desires to achieve something difficult or impressive. An ambitious student might aim to become a doctor, knowing it requires years of challenging study. An ambitious athlete sets their sights on making the Olympic team, training with dedication and focus beyond what's required for the school squad.

The word describes both people and their goals. You can be an ambitious person, or you can have ambitious plans. An ambitious project is one that tries to accomplish something big: building a treehouse with multiple rooms and a zip line is more ambitious than hammering together a simple platform.

Ambition drives people to work harder and reach further than they might otherwise. It's what pushes inventors to spend years perfecting an idea, entrepreneurs to start businesses, and explorers to venture into unknown territories. Ambitious people want challenging goals and meaningful accomplishments: they're willing to put in extra effort, take calculated risks, and persist when things get tough.

The word carries a positive sense of having big dreams and the drive to pursue them. When someone calls you ambitious, they're recognizing that you're not satisfied with just getting by. You want to accomplish something meaningful, and you're prepared to do the work required to get there.