ambition vs nisus

ambition

noun
  • A personal quality similar to motivation, not necessarily tied to a single goal. 

  • Eager or inordinate desire for some object that confers distinction, as preferment, honor, superiority, political power, or fame; desire to distinguish one's self from other people. 

  • An object of an ardent desire. 

  • A desire, as in (sense 1), for another person to achieve these things. 

verb
  • To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet. 

nisus

noun
  • A mental or physical effort to attain a specific goal; a striving. 

  • The periodic procreative desire manifested in the spring by birds, etc. 

  • The contraction of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles to evacuate faeces or urine. 

How often have the words ambition and nisus occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )