And although that definition has fallen by the wayside in our historically-adverse age, within the literary world ambition, it seems, has rediscovered its devilish ways. All those high-minded orphans, looking to get ahead. In the days of the Republic, however, when would-be Senators canvassed Rome for votes before a certain Caesar put an end to all that democratic silliness, there was a downside to future ambition, negative connotations that stuck with it through Milton’s misplaced Paradiso and Dickensian London, when to be “ambitious” was something of an insult. To us, it is an unassuming noun, unusually simple, for English, to both pronounce and spell, invoking affirmation of hard work and do-goodness. From the Latin ambitiō, by way of the Old French, across the Channel and the centuries through the Middle English, and finally to the modern day, comes to our protean patois that pleasant, well-groomed word ambition.
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