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unto me, Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle. Deut. ii. 9. In ambitious strength I did Contend against thy valor. Shak.

s self by intemperance; to debauch a woman; to debauch an army. Learning not debauched by ambition. Burke. A man must have got his conscience thoroughly debauched and hardened before he can arrive to the height of sin. South. Her pride debauched her judgment and her eyes. Cowley.

s with a motto, used apart from heraldic bearings to denote the historical situation, the ambition, or the desire of the person adopting it. See Cognizance.

e, or an argument. To devise curious works. Ex. CCTV. 32. Devising schemes to realize his ambitious views. Bancroft.

ceeding from the want of gratification, or from disappointed wishes and expectations. The ambitious man has little happiness, but is subject to much uneasiness and dissatisfaction. Addison.

Striving to excel; ambitious; emulous. [Obs.] "A most emulate pride." Shak.

Ambitiously desirous to equal or even to excel another; eager to emulate or vie with another; desirous of like excellence with another; -- with of; as, emulous of another's example or virtues.

fore; formerly; heretofore. Chaucer. Tityrus, with whose style he had erst disclaimed all ambition to match his pastoral pipe. A. W. Ward. At erst, at first; at the beginning. -- Now at erst, at this present time. Chaucer.

their eyes as a thing feasible in practice. Burke. It was not feasible to gratify so many ambitions. Beaconsfield.

Lofty elevation and excursion;a mounting; a soaas, a flight of imagination, ambition, folly. Could he have kept his spirit to that flight, He had been happy. Byron. His highest flights were indeed far below those of Taylor. Macaulay.

ng manner, by way of ostentation, to excite admiration, etc.; ostentatious embellishment; ambitious copiousness or amplification; parade of wordas, a flourish of rhetoric or of wit. He lards with flourishes his long harangue. Dryden.

To excite; to animate; to stir. Such things as can only feed his pride and flush his ambition. South.

One whose ambition it is to gain admiration by showy dress; a coxcomb; an inferior dandy.

or passing reflection; to allude; to hint; - - often with at. Wherein obscurely Cæsar''s ambition shall be glanced at. Shak. He glanced at a certain reverend doctor. Swift.

; waste. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church. Acts viii. 3. Ye gods, what havoc does ambition make Among your works! Addison.

Reaching high or upward; hence, ambitious; aspiring. Shak.

Extravagant in opinions or ambition. "Highflying, arbitrary kings." Dryden.

Any strong eager desire. O sacred hunger of ambitious minds! Spenser. For hunger of my gold I die. Dryden.

The act of hurrying in motion or business; pressure; urgency; bustle; confusion. Ambition raises a tumult in the soul, it inflames the mind, and puts into a violent hurry of thought. Addison.

cited Prusias to join in war, set before him the greatness of the Romans. Bacon. No blown ambition doth our arms incite. Shak.