mindmap root((抱负)) ambition applies to the desire for personal advancement or preferment and may suggest equally a praiseworthy or an inordinate desire: driven by the ~ to be rich. aspiration implies a striving after something higher than oneself and usually implies that the striver is thereby ennobled or uplifted: an ~ to become President someday. pretension suggests ardent desire for recognition of accomplishment without actual possession of the necessary ability or qualifications and therefore implies presumption or folly: people with literary ~s frequenting her salon.