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noun

Covetousness n.

Strong desire. (R.) "When workmen strive to do better than well, They do confound their skill in covetousness."

A strong or inordinate desire of obtaining and possessing some supposed good; excessive desire for riches or money; in a bad sense. "Covetousness, by a greed of getting more, deprivess itself of the true end of getting."

Synonyms: Avarice; cupidity; eagerness.

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Etymology of 'Covetousness'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Covetousness" Quotes from Famous Books

... brought the Mormon leaders into debt, this "revelation," was designed to help them out, and it contained these further directions, in the voice of the Lord, be it remembered: "The covenants being broken through transgression, by covetousness and feigned words, therefore you are dissolved as a United Order with your brethren, that you are not bound only up to this hour unto them, only on this wise, as I said, by loan as shall be agreed by this Order ...

— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... many outside observers of the change wrought in the Maoris by their new religion. Not all received the "new heart." Indeed, to judge from the accounts of men like Wakefield and Fox, the old heart was hardly touched by the new doctrines. The Christian Maoris were blamed for covetousness and insolence, for dishonesty and lying. "Give me the good old Maori who has never been under missionary influence," was the feeling of many of the colonists. It was the same complaint as is heard in every mission field. But calmer and more unprejudiced observers give a different ...

— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... is a good specimen of the same humour:—A minister had been preaching against covetousness and the love of money, and had frequently repeated how "love of money was the root of all evil" Two old bodies walking home from church—one said, "An' wasna the minister strang upo' the money?" "Nae doubt," said the other, rather hesitatingly; and added, "ay, but ...

— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... that not onely actions that have their beginning from Covetousness, Ambition, Lust, or other Appetites to the thing propounded; but also those that have their beginning from Aversion, or Feare of those consequences that follow the ...

— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... made use of the knowledge I had of my individual hearers, to say what I thought would do them good. Not that I ever preached AT anybody; I only sought to explain the principles of things in which I knew action of some sort was demanded from them. For I remembered how our Lord's sermon against covetousness, with the parable of the rich man with the little barn, had for its occasion the request of a man that our Lord would interfere to make his brother share with him; which He declining to do, yet gave both brothers ...

— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

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