ambitious Copy link Outline I. Eager for praise, power, glory, etc.II. Pretentious, ostentatious • ambitious: I. Eager for praise, power, glory, etc.: laudis, gloriae, honorum, potentiae cupidus, appetens, avidus: as, you (Caesar) will not deny that you are very a. of glory, gloriae te esse avidissimum non negabis, Cic.: v. desirous of, eager.--Note. The adj. ambitiosus is rarely, if ever, used in precisely the sense of the Eng. word; denoting rather the character of one who obsequiously courts (public) favour. So Cic. appears always to employ it: thus, homo minime ambitiosus (Fam. 13, 1, fin.), is a man who is not at all offensively obsequious. Phr.: to be a., gloriam petere, exsequi; ambitione teneri, captum teneri, laborare, etc.: to be not at all a., omni ambitione remotum esse, Cic.: v. ambition: to be extremely a. of power, potentiam concupiscere, Cic.: those who are unscrupulously a., qui omnia recta et honesta negligunt, dummodo potentiam consequantur, Cic. Off. 3, 21, 82. II. Pretentious, ostentatious: ambĭtĭōsus: an a. death, a. mors, Tac.: to lop off a. ornaments, a. ornamenta recidere, Hor.