unambitious

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of unambitious But although the play’s scenario certainly sets them up for banter, the dialogue itself is bizarrely unambitious and often illogical. Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 19 Sep. 2024 That unambitious goal has already been met for the last 52 years. Amaka Anku, Foreign Affairs, 11 Oct. 2022 Thus far, the world has mostly failed to meet even relatively unambitious climate goals. David Owen, The New Yorker, 20 Feb. 2024 Still, when an apparently innocent citizen like Nichols is tortured and executed by armed agents of the state, reform seems not only unambitious but inadequate. Paul Butler, Washington Post, 17 Feb. 2023 See All Example Sentences for unambitious
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unambitious
Adjective
  • Screening disproportionately detects indolent tumors—those less likely to be lethal in the first place.
    Siddhartha Mukherjee, New Yorker, 16 June 2025
  • Her tumor appears ominous but is, by nature, indolent—slow-growing, noninvasive, never destined to threaten her life.
    Siddhartha Mukherjee, New Yorker, 16 June 2025
Adjective
  • Soviet Russia, too, experienced periodic panics about slothful bureaucrats impeding the dictatorship of the proletariat.
    Charlie Tyson, The New Yorker, 15 Mar. 2025
  • At our test track, the buzzy little SUV needed a slothful 9.2 seconds to hit 60 mph.
    Drew Dorian, Car and Driver, 23 Dec. 2022
Adjective
  • The film, like How to Train Your Dragon, is about a shiftless youngster (Lilo, a Hawaiian girl who has been acting out since the death of her parents) bonding with a fantasy creature (Stitch, a blue alien experiment designed as a weapon of destruction).
    David Sims, The Atlantic, 13 June 2025
  • Expectations of real gains in livelihoods among China’s large, increasingly shiftless rural population will be much harder to fulfill in an era of slower growth.
    Scott Rozelle and Matthew Boswell, Foreign Affairs, 5 Oct. 2022
Adjective
  • Giant tanks of lazy swimmers sit sandwiched between fields of cows and ponds of striped bass, carefully tended by three generations of the Evans family.
    Kylie Williams, Miami Herald, 29 June 2025
  • The water park has something for everyone—from high-speed slides and a wave pool to a relaxing lazy river and kid-only water slides.
    Lydia Mansel, Southern Living, 29 June 2025

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Unambitious.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unambitious. Accessed 3 Jul. 2025.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!