unambitious
Britishadjective
Explanation
Someone who is unambitious isn't particularly motivated to achieve some kind of success. Do you prefer lying on the couch to doing extra credit? When it comes to school, you're unambitious. An ambitious person has an obvious interest in succeeding at something. If you're determined to climb Mt. Everest, and you train hard in preparation, you're ambitious. If you're not particularly motivated about that or anything else, you're unambitious. Ambitious comes from the Latin ambitiosus, "eager for public office" or "eager for favor." Add the prefix un-, meaning "not," and you get unambitious.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Unambitious parents had to watch their young to keep them from sneaking up telephone poles.
From Time Magazine Archive
Unambitious at 64, Isaac Bacharach is rated by impartial observers thus: an Old Guardsman of the best school, a born behind-the-scenes fixer, "one of the dozen men who really count in the House."
From Time Magazine Archive
Unambitious of that distinction which only wealth bestows, they are content with an abundance for all their comforts, and for the comfort of those who, as friends or neighbors, come to share it with them.
From The Memories of Fifty Years Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest by Sparks, William Henry
Unambitious and passionately fond of his home, he was seldom away from it, and accordingly led an extremely quiet and uneventful life.
From Fifty years with the Revere Copper Co. A Paper Read at the Stockholders' Meeting held on Monday 24 March 1890 by Snow, S. T.
Unambitious, yet finished, it has the charm of distinction.
From Birds in Town and Village by Hudson, W. H. (William Henry)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
