Avarice
['æv(ə)rɪs] or ['ævərɪs]
Definition
(noun.) reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins).
(noun.) extreme greed for material wealth.
Typist: Nelly--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) An excessive or inordinate desire of gain; greediness after wealth; covetousness; cupidity.
(n.) An inordinate desire for some supposed good.
Edited by Ervin
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. Penuriousness, cupidity, niggardliness, closeness, covetousness.
Typed by Corinne
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Greed, cupidity, rapacity, penuriousness, niggardliness, miserliness,stinginess, covetousness, acquisitiveness, griping, greediness
ANT:Large-heartedness, unselfishness, liberality, bountifulness, profuseness,squander, prodigality, extravagance, waste
Edited by Candice
Definition
n. eager desire for wealth: covetousness.—adj. Avari′cious extremely covetous: greedy.—adv. Avari′ciously.—n. Avari′ciousness.
Typist: Robbie
Examples
- Where does discretion end, and avarice begin? Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.
- One might have said that the shadows of avarice and distrust lengthened as his own shadow lengthened, and that the night closed around him gradually. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- Whether they were always so free from avarice, partialities, or want, that a bribe, or some other sinister view, could have no place among them? Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.
- Can I,' said Mr. Jingle, fixing his eyes on the aunt's face--'can I see--lovely creature--sacrificed at the shrine--heartless avarice! Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers.
- Well may it be doubted; for, had I really loved, could I have sacrificed my feelings to vanity, to avarice? Jane Austen. Sense and Sensibility.
- Of course you know that ambition and avarice are held to be, as indeed they are, a disgrace? Plato. The Republic.
- Do not thou interrupt me with thine ill-timed avarice, said the Outlaw, and I will deal with him in thy behalf. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- And has not her own avarice been sufficiently punished by the ruin of her own hopes and the loss of the property by which she set so much store? William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- We greedily eat and drink poison out of the gilded cup of vice or from the beggar's wallet of avarice. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- There was the pupil's youth, the pupil's manhood;--his avarice, his ingratitude, his implacability, his inconstancy. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- Come,' said Sam, 'none o' them taunts agin the wictim o' avarice, and come off that 'ere step. Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers.
- This last-named had also one other distinctive property--that of avarice. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- Flattery and meanness again arise when the spirited element is subjected to avarice, and the lion is habituated to become a monkey. Plato. The Republic.
Checker: Thomas