Meaning & use
lofty goal
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Meaning
nouncountable
An aim that is very ambitious, noble or hard to achieve, often one that aims to improve something on a large scale.
Grammar: Often used with a verb of setting or pursuing: set a lofty goal.
Patterns
- set a lofty goal
- pursue a lofty goal
The company set a lofty goal of using only clean energy by 2035.
Ending hunger in the region is a lofty goal, but they have made progress.
She admired his lofty goals, even though they seemed out of reach.
Word forms
| plural | lofty goals |
|---|
Common combinations
- set a lofty goal
- The mayor set a lofty goal of planting a million trees.
- pursue lofty goals
- Young founders often pursue lofty goals with little money.
- achieve a lofty goal
- It took ten years to achieve such a lofty goal.
- lofty goal of ending something
- They share the lofty goal of ending child poverty.
- admirable if lofty goal
- It is an admirable if lofty goal for a small team.
Synonyms and how they differ
- ambitious goal
- Ambitious goal is a neutral, everyday phrase, while lofty goal sounds more elevated and often moral.
- high aim
- High aim is similar but more literary and less common in modern business writing.
- grand objective
- Grand objective stresses size and scale, whereas lofty goal stresses noble or high-minded purpose.
- tall order
- A tall order is a task that is hard to do, but it does not suggest the idealism that lofty goal does.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: lofty goal or lofty?
lofty goal vs lofty
Lofty can also mean arrogant, as in a lofty manner, while a lofty goal is usually ambitious rather than arrogant.
Practice
Which goal would most likely be called lofty?
Choose one answer.
A lofty goal is ambitious and often aimed at large-scale improvement, as with eliminating a disease. The other choices are ordinary daily tasks.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “lofty goal”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.