Meaning & use
ambitious project
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Meaning
phrasecountable
A plan or piece of work that is large, difficult, and requires a lot of effort or resources.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'an ambitious project' or 'ambitious projects'.
Patterns
- an ambitious project
- an ambitious project to do something
- embark on an ambitious project
The city launched an ambitious project to plant a million trees.
Building the new subway line was an ambitious project that took ten years.
She is working on an ambitious project to map the human brain.
Word forms
| plural | ambitious projects |
|---|
Common combinations
- embark on an ambitious project
- The team embarked on an ambitious project to redesign the entire website.
- launch an ambitious project
- The government launched an ambitious project to improve rural schools.
- an ambitious project to
- They started an ambitious project to clean up the river.
- a highly ambitious project
- The museum's highly ambitious project attracted international attention.
Synonyms and how they differ
- undertaking
- A more formal word for a task or project, especially a difficult one; it does not necessarily suggest large size or ambition.
- venture
- Often used for a new business or risky activity; an ambitious project can be a venture, but a venture is usually commercial.
- enterprise
- A formal word for a large or important project, often one that involves many people; it can also mean a business.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: ambitious project or ambivalent?
ambitious project vs ambivalent
Ambivalent means having mixed feelings about something; it is not related to ambition or project size.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'ambitious project' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Ambitious project' is a noun phrase, so it can be the object of 'started'. The other options treat it as an adjective or adverb, which is wrong.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “ambitious project”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.