LITMIR.BIZ

AMBITION.

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      Synonyms:

      Aspiration is the desire for excellence, pure and simple. Ambition, literally a going around to solicit votes, has primary reference to the award or approval of others, and is the eager desire of power, fame, or something deemed great and eminent, and viewed as a worthy prize. The prizes of aspiration are virtue, nobility, skill, or other high qualities. The prizes of ambition are advancement, fame, honor, and the like. There is a noble and wise or an ignoble, selfish, and harmful ambition. Emulation is not so much to win any excellence or success for itself as to equal or surpass other persons. There is such a thing as a noble emulation, when those we would equal or surpass are noble, and the means we would use worthy. But, at the highest, emulation is inferior as a motive to aspiration, which seeks the high quality or character for its own sake, not with reference to another. Competition is the striving for something that is sought by another at the same time. Emulation regards the abstract, competition the concrete; rivalry is the same in essential meaning with competition, but differs in the nature of the objects contested for, which, in[41] the case of rivalry, are usually of the nobler sort and less subject to direct gaging, measurement, and rule. We speak of competition in business, emulation in scholarship, rivalry in love, politics, etc.; emulation of excellence, success, achievement; competition for a prize; rivalry between persons or nations. Competition may be friendly, rivalry is commonly hostile. Opposition is becoming a frequent substitute for competition in business language; it implies that the competitor is an opponent and hinderer.

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AMEND.

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      Synonyms:

      To amend is to change for the better by removing faults, errors, or defects, and always refers to that which at some point falls short of a standard of excellence. Advance, better, and improve may refer either to what is quite imperfect or to what has reached a high degree of excellence; we advance the kingdom of God, improve the minds of our children, better the morals of the people. But for matters below the point of ordinary approval we seldom use these words; we do not speak of bettering a wretched alley, or improving a foul sewer. There we use cleanse, purify, or similar words. We correct evils, reform abuses, rectify incidental conditions of evil or error; we ameliorate poverty and misery, which we can not wholly remove. We mend a tool, repair a building, correct proof; we amend character or conduct that is faulty, or a statement or law that is defective. A text, writing, or statement is amended by the author or by some adequate authority; it is often emended by conjecture. A motion is amended by the mover or by the assembly; a constitution is amended by the people; an ancient text is emended by a critic who believes that what seems to him the better reading is what the author wrote. Compare ALLEVIATE.

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