Definition: noun 1: circuit, compass 2: the bounds or limits of a place or district 3: a sphere of action, expression, or influence: scope

Etymology: Middle English, from Latin ambitus, from ambire

Quotation: “What is a family? Is it just a genetic chain, parents and offspring, people like me? Or is it a social construct, an economic unit, optimal for child rearing and divisions of labor? Or is it something else entirely: a store of shared memories, say? An ambit of love? A reach across the void?”
- from “Dreams from My Father” by Barack Obama

I came across this word in my latest read and couldn’t quite parse its meaning. As I suspected, it has the same Latin root, but the relationship between “ambition” and “ambit” is still somewhat murky. I suppose your ambition (desire to achieve a particular end) can be directed toward your ambit (sphere of action). Sure, that works.