unambitious

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.

Definitions of unambitious

1. adjective

   having little desire for success or achievement
   synonyms: ambitionless

   shiftless

   lacking or characterized by lack of ambition or initiative; lazy

   nonenterprising, unenterprising

   lacking in enterprise; not bold or venturesome

   antonyms:

   ambitious

   having a strong desire for success or achievement

   pushful, pushy

   marked by aggressive ambition and energy and initiative

   aspirant, aspiring, wishful

   desiring or striving for recognition or advancement

   compulsive, determined, driven

   strongly motivated to succeed

   manque, would-be

   unfulfilled or frustrated in realizing an ambition

   overambitious

   excessively ambitious

   enterprising

   marked by imagination, initiative, and readiness to undertake new projects