Instead of directly translating the ancient Greek word philotimia as amor honoris (love of honor) into Latin, the ancient Roman authors chose the closest equivalent, ambitio. Ambitio originally had a narrower meaning: going around canvassing for votes. By Cicero’s time, however, it could mean both zeal for glory and excessive striving. In the ancient Roman sense, it often meant the pursuit of public esteem.

To avoid overlap, the Russian language distinguishes честолюбие (love of honor) from амбиция (ambition) in its vocabulary. In modern Greek, philotimia has morphed into philotimo (φιλότιμο), and has a solely positive connotation: self-respect, sense of duty, not letting others down. In Azerbaijani, love of honor is often translated as izzəti-nəfs which is an Arabic word and, in meaning, has relation to dignity and is closer to the modern Greek word than to the ancient one.

The word ambition (ambisiya) has now lost its moral colorig and is often understood as the drive to achieve advancement. Shakespeare probably used the word in its both the ancient Roman (positive, noble aspiration) and the Christian (negative, selfish craving) senses when referring to Caesar. In 1755, it was described in Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary as desiring something higher than is possessed at present. Modern translators of ancient authors, however, often choose the word ambition when describing love of glory (see Sallust, Plutarch).