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Covetous   Listen
adjective
Covetous  adj.  
1.
Very desirous; eager to obtain; used in a good sense. (Archaic) "Covetous of wisdom and fair virtue." "Covetous death bereaved us all, To aggrandize one funeral."
2.
Inordinately desirous; excessively eager to obtain and possess (esp. money); avaricious; in a bad sense. "The covetous person lives as if the world were madealtogether for him, and not he for the world."
Synonyms: Avaricious; parsimonious; penurious; misrely; niggardly. See Avaricious.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Covetous" Quotes from Famous Books



... greed, greediness, avarice, avidity, rapacity, extortion. selfishness &c.943; auri sacra fames[Lat]. grasping, craving, canine appetite, rapacity. V. covet, crave (desire) 865; grasp; exact, extort. Adj. greedy, avaricious, covetous, acquisitive, grasping; rapacious; lickerish[obs3]. greedy as a hog; overeager; voracious; ravenous, ravenous as a wolf; openmouthed, extortionate, exacting, sordid|!, alieni appetens[Lat]; insatiable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... are covetous of those things of which we have but few, extravagant with those of which we have an abundance. When the Western farmer burns corn in place of coal, be assured he sees his own account in it. We husband our white pine, and ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... driving him on and on through burning sands and 'neath a blazing sun, far from his tearful mother and mourning sire. How cruel the fates to consign to slavery one born to be a king! His master is a hard man and covetous, but her pleadings shall yet purchase sweet liberty for old Jacob's son, that he may fulfill the high dreams of which he has told her—may answer the midnight messages of Israel's God and triumph over those wicked brethren. Perhaps—who knows?—in his own land he will become ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... roadside shops, which were a curse to Trinidad, and are still a curse to the English workman. Moreover—for all men are not perfect, even in Trinidad—the Coolie required protection, in certain cases, against a covetous and short- sighted employer, who might fancy it to be his interest to let the man idle during his first year, while weak, and so save up an arrear of 'lost days' to be added at the end of the five years, when he was a strong skilled labourer. An employer ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... of the fact that sad occurrences in the past have made it evident that the local population, incited by evil-minded persons from covetous or other motives, has taken part in the disorders, it is the duty of the gubernatorial administration to make it clear to the local communes that they are obliged to adopt measures for the purpose ... of impressing upon the inhabitants the gross criminal offence implied in willfully perpetrating ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... "Now there was a covetous undertaker in town, who carted away the corpse, and then told the widow that she must spend much money on the funeral, in order to have her husband buried properly; or else, the tongues of the neighbors would wag. So the poor woman had to sell her cow, the only thing she had, and was left ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis

... brief record of the titanic struggle five years ago in the ancient Manchurian city to which I have come. What Gettysburg was in our Civil War, that Mukden was in the first great contest between the white race and the Mongolian. Here covetous Death for once was satisfied, his gruesome garnering seen at each wintry nightfall in the {71} windrows of bloody and mangled bodies strewn ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... features, had retained a loamy tint, a gloomy, russet reflection of the earth. Monseigneur Laurence had really made a politic selection in confiding the organisation and management of the Grotto to those Garaison missionaries, who were so tenacious and covetous, for the most part sons of mountain peasants and passionately attached ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... such manners can exist in the higher ranks, without inducing a total depravity of general thought, and perversion of the power of mind. Talent, often the most venal of venal things, follows in the wake of corruption. Covetous of gain, thirsting for patronage, it fans, instead of lowering, the passions by which all hope to profit. Whenever prevailing vices have set in upon a nation, be they such as spring from a monarchical, an aristocratic, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... sprawling in the doorway, sputtering threats to the air without, but with one covetous hand clutching at the shilling which I threw behind me, and entered the church, which we found yet empty, though through the open great door we heard the drum beat loudly and a deepening ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... more took part in promoting large undertakings, with a finger in every pie and a share of every bribe. In 1872 he was actively engaged in journalism, having been appointed Director of the Epoque, a Republican journal which made a great success by publishing the papers found in the Tuileries. Covetous of his son's fortune, he hastened a disease from which Maxime suffered, by encouraging him in vicious courses, and in the end got possession of the whole estate. By a singular irony, Aristide, now returned to his original Republicanism, ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... will be plain sailing so long as the rest of the things last," said Pawson, handling the piece with a covetous touch. He too liked a day off when he could get it. "Who will you ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... regard to the merchants, for they are the better class of people, and those who are most interested, because of their property. So great security was not felt about the others, even though they were Christians; because, as they are a poor and covetous people, they would be inclined to any act of meanness. However, it was always thought that it would be difficult for them to cause any commotion, unless a strong fleet came from China, on which they could rely. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... maintenance of such a separation, the exclusion of the President's Ministers from the legislature is essential. If they are not excluded they become the executive, they eclipse the President himself. A legislative chamber is greedy and covetous; it acquires as much, it concedes as little as possible. The passions of its members are its rulers; the law-making faculty, the most comprehensive of the imperial faculties, is its instrument; it will take the administration if it can take it. Tried by their own aims, ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... had not been broken since, but the energies of the warlike descendants of those first settlers of Ganymede were expended in casting about for new fields to conquer. Through the ages they cast increasingly covetous eyes on those inner planets, Mars, Terra and Venus. Not having the advantage of the Rulden, they knew of these bodies only what could be seen through their own crude optical instruments and what they had learned by word of mouth ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head—most of all into the girl's own—that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... Through all the provinces, were wild ambition. And no less pride: yea, even Augustus' name Would early vanish, should it be profaned With such promiscuous flatteries. For our part, We here protest it, and are covetous Posterity should know it. we are mortal; And can but deeds of men: 'twere glory enough, Could we be truly a prince. And, they shall add Abounding grace unto our memory, That shall report us worthy our forefathers, Careful of your affairs, constant in dangers, ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... Smaragdine tablet. But surely there were alchemistic masters who did not let themselves be blinded by the word gold and sympathetically carried out still further the language of the Smaragdine tablet. They were the previously mentioned lofty-minded men. The covetous crowd of sloppers, however, adhered to the gold of the Smaragdine tablet and other writings and had no appreciation of anything else. For a long time alchemy meant no more for ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... Surely it was a goodly sign, a goodly monument, the sign of the judge's skin. I pray God we may once see the skin in England." "I am sure," says he, in another sermon, "this is scala inferni, the right way to hell, to be covetous, to take bribes, and pervert justice. If a judge should ask me the way to hell, I would show him this way. First, let him be a covetous man; let his heart be poisoned with covetousness. Then let him go a little further, and take bribes; and, lastly, pervert judgment. Lo, here ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... behind him the records of such words as those of Confucius, boldly spoken to a king: "Ke K'ang, distressed about the number of thieves in his kingdom, inquired of Confucius how he might do away with them? The sage said, 'If you, sir, were not covetous, the people would not steal, though you should pay them for it.' Ke K'ang asked, 'What do you say about killing the unprincipled for the good of the principled?' Confucius said, 'In carrying out your government, why use killing at all? Let the rulers desire what is good, and the people will ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... they show the influence of her character and example upon her people. The very ministers of justice were made the abettors of her guilt; and law, with all its formalities and solemnities, was made to sanction crime. How many sins were committed to gratify one idle, covetous desire! God was insulted and defied and blasphemed; justice was corrupted; and falsehood, perjury, and murder were all used to accomplish the wicked will of Jezebel. And how many victims have been thus arraigned, and perished ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous

... made themselves masters of one town after another in spite of the despairing appeals of the conquered to the Theban king. From the accession of Khuniatonu, they set to work to annex the countries of Nukhassi, Nii, Tunipa, and Zinzauru: they looked with covetous eyes upon Phoenicia, and were already menacing Coele-Syria. The religious confusion in Egypt under Tutankhamon and Ai left them a free field for their ambitions, and when Harmhabi ventured to cross to the east of the isthmus, he found them definitely installed in the region stretching ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... At the end of the season they had gathered together a splendid stock of beaver fur and began to think of a homeward trip. Having made everything ready, they finally started for Taos. True, their party was small and the risks they ran of attacks from hostile and covetous Indians were imminent; but, fortune, or Providence favored them and there was finally a satisfactory end to their anxieties; for, after a quick march over the plains, they arrived safely at Taos. Beaver fur was, at the time of their ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... instantly fall at thy feet, transformed into an image of gold. From this take as much as thou shalt have occasion for; and every member that shall be separated from the image shall instantly be replaced by another of the same precious metal."[FN398] In the morning a covetous neighbour named Hajm visited the merchant, and soon after the apparition presented itself. Abd-el-Malik at once arose and after striking it several blows on the head with a stick, it fell down and was changed into an image of gold. He took what ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... all," said I. "A great deal of the monastic plate disappeared—clean vanished. It used to be said that a lot of it was hidden away or buried by its owners, but it's much more likely that it was stolen by the covetous and greedy folk of the neighbourhood—the big men, of course. Anyway, while a great deal was certainly sent by the commissioners to the king's treasury in London, a lot more—especially in out-of-the-way places ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... God in the old dispensation, under the law of Moses, was hard and wearisome. Many and divers sacrifices had men to offer, of all that they possessed, both in house and in field, which the people, being idle and covetous, did grudgingly or for some temporal advantage; as the prophet Malachi saith, chap. i., "who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naught? neither do ye kindle fires on my altars for naught." But where there is such an idle and grudging heart there can be no singing, ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... the covetous owld rip, and him wid a dozen wives at laste, to want our darlin'. What'll I do?—what'll I do? Faix, ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... that he is thine, And I my self am mortgag'd to thy will, Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still: But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, For thou art covetous, and he is kind; He learn'd but surety-like to write for me, Under that bond that him as fast doth bind. The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, Thou usurer, that putt'st forth all to use, And sue ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... to look for Jesus Christ with a heart full of the world, if you go to look for Him while you wish to hold on by all the habitudes and earthlinesses of your past, you will never find Him. The sensualist seeks for Him, the covetous man seeks for Him, the passionate, ill-tempered man seeks for Him; the woman plunged in frivolities, or steeped to the eyebrows in domestic cares,—these may in some feeble fashion go to look for Him and they will not find Him, because they have sought ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... otherwise. Many Germanic tribes, particularly the East Goths, had fought under the banner of Attila, and in the tradition handed down from them he lived as the embodiment of wisdom and generosity. Here it was impossible that epic story should picture him as slaying the Burgundian kings through a covetous desire for their gold. The annihilation of the Burgundians is thus left without a motive. To supply this, Kriemhild's character is placed upon an entirely different basis. Instead of avenging upon Attila the death of her brothers the Burgundian kings, Kriemhild now ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler

... the monk to life. This saint, while watching over the spiritual welfare of the monks with whom he was associated, observed the devil riding on a mule to the monastery, and entering into an aged monk possessed of a covetous heart. Penance and a trust in holy relics drove the evil spirit away, and brought the monk to a proper frame of mind. When a pious sister of St. Benedict died, he saw her spirit in the likeness of a white dove ascending ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... to the point of revenge. Morgan's plan was simple and practicable. De Lussan, Teach, Velsers and the rest would fall in with it gladly. There would be enough rakehelly, degraded specimens of humanity, hungry and thirsty, lustful and covetous, in Port Royal—which was the wickedest and most flourishing city on the American hemisphere at the time—to accompany them and insure success, provided only there would be reward in women and liquor and treasure. He would do ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... house there dwelt a covetous and stingy old man and woman, who, when they heard what had happened, came and borrowed the dog, and, having taken him home, prepared a great feast ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... apparent that the clerk of the weather had done his worst, and the supply of rain was running short. Clad in aquascutic garments, and surmounted by an ungainly two-rupee bazaar umbrella (my dapper British one having been annexed by a covetous Mangi)— ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... the day, made something to come home to. As he helped the boy, who was already at school, with his lesson for the next day, or fed Louie, perched on his knee, with the bits from his plate demanded by her covetous eyes and open mouth, he got back, little by little, his self-respect. He returned, too, in the evenings to some of his old pursuits, joined a Radical club near, and some science lectures. He was aged and much more silent than of yore, but not unhappy; his employers, too, feeling ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... factor, though eager for the news, knew better than to show any haste about it; so he kept the old mariner just long enough in waiting to damp a too covetous ardor, and then he complacently locked Arabella in her bedroom, and bolted off Kitty in the basement; because they both were sadly inquisitive, and this strange ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... is said, "Forasmuch as usury is by the word of God utterly prohibited, as a vice most odious and detestable, as in divers places of the Holy Scriptures it is evident to be seen, which thing by no godly teachings and persuasions can sink into the hearts of divers greedy, uncharitable, and covetous persons of this realm, nor yet, by any terrible threatenings of God's wrath and vengeance," etc., it is enacted that whosoever shall thereafter lend money "for any manner of usury, increase, lucre, gain, or interest, to be had, received, or hoped for," shall ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... Jonathan Brewster, in a letter written from the Plymouth fort at Windsor in July, 1635, tells of the daily arrival by land and water of small parties of these adventurous settlers. Their presence around the fort caused Brewster much uneasiness, since some began to cast covetous eyes upon the very spot which the Plymouth government had bought from the Mohegans and ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler

... cultivating those excellent virtues of good faith and constancy to such a degree that he never betrayed any secret, except for the purpose of securing another's safety; nor was he ever accused of covetous or grasping conduct, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... farm on the Vineyard, a reasonable amount of money "at use," certain interests in coasters, whalers, and sealers, and a sufficiency of household effects, and this in a very modest way, to make himself and family comfortable. Notwithstanding this seeming moderation, Daggett was an intensely covetous man; but his wishes were limited by ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... the plague brought out the good in a man, sometimes changed his life from one of covetous indifference or grasping selfishness into a life of earnestness and devout philanthropy, it happened at other times—and I fear it must be confessed more frequently—that coarse natures, hard and cruel ones, were made more brutal and callous by the demoralizing ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... was not a time-server nor a covetous man. "Neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... covetous eyes ranged from the treasure in his hand to the threatening east. A puff of wind caught the sail and sent the boom athwartships, like a mighty flail. Both men ducked instinctively, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... fate had become weary of fighting against them, Peter, who had been watching the sentry's weapons with covetous eyes till it was beginning to grow dusk, suddenly uttered ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... Jim McFann. Because of the Indian strain in his blood a minor undercurrent of prejudice had set in against him, more particularly among the white settlers and the cattlemen who were casting covetous eyes on reservation lands. While McFann was not strictly a ward of the Government, he had land on the reservation. His lot was cast with the Indians, chiefly because he found few white men who would associate with him on account of his Indian blood. Talpers ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... excusable, inasmuch as they are worried out of their lives by importunate memorialists, and jaded to their hearts by indigent solicitors; and it might be reasonably doubted whether it would satisfy the eye of the covetous if the sands of the desert could be turned into pearls:—The eye of the greedy is not to be filled with worldly riches, any more than a well can be replenished from the dew of night. And had Hatim Tayi, who dwelt in the desert, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... then if he obey not, "Let him be to thee as an Heathen man, and a Publican." And there lyeth Excommunication for a Scandalous Life, as (1 Cor. 5. 11.) "If any man that is called a Brother, be a Fornicator, or Covetous, or an Idolater, or a Drunkard, or an Extortioner, with such a one yee are not to eat." But to Excommunicate a man that held this foundation, that Jesus Was The Christ, for difference of opinion in other points, by which that ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... spellbound by its beauty and strength. It was like a rush of fern-scents, the breath of pine forests, the music of the stars, the first lovelight in a mother's eye; and now its pristine beauty was to be marred, as covetous eyes and a lust of possession moved an earth-born man to lay hands on all ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams

... band of powerful, lithe, wiry, covetous savages, and thought of the hundreds of others whom they could summon by a single war-whoop to their side, and of the smallness of our own party, I could not help feeling that moral influence was a powerful factor in the affairs of man. No doubt they were restrained to some extent by the certain ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... upon a cucumber leaf—does not the world read it?—that Nahoum Pasha's form shall cast a longer shadow than the trees; so that every man in Egypt shall, thinking on him, be as covetous as Ashaah, who knew but one thing more covetous than himself—the sheep that mistook the rainbow for a rope of hay, and, jumping for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... good principles of action to be adopted: To benefit others without being lavish; to encourage labor without being harsh; to add to your resources without being covetous; to be dignified without being supercilious; and to inspire awe without being austere. Also, we should not search for love or demand it, but so live that ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... storehouses. In the magnificent harbor were lying some of the most formidable vessels of the United States navy, including the steam frigate "Merrimac," of which we shall hear much hereafter. Small wonder was it, that the people of Virginia, about to secede from the Union, looked with covetous eyes upon this vast stock of munitions of war lying apparently within their grasp. It did not take long for them to persuade themselves that they were right in seizing it; and, once decided, their movements ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... idleness; some are extremely industrious in other men's business, and sottishly neglectful of their own; some think themselves rich because their credit is great, though they can never pay, till they break, and compound for their debts; one is so covetous that he lives poor to die rich; one for a little uncertain gain will venture to cross the roughest seas, and expose his life for the purchase of a livelihood; another will depend on the plunders of war, rather than on the honest gains of ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... thinking of the unknown man, on account of whom Anna had had to die, and who, exempt from punishment, and, perhaps, remorseless, too, dared to go about in a great town and to live on, like any other—no, like thousands and thousands of others who had stared at her with covetous, indecent glances. Bertha divined what an enormous wrong had been wrought against the world in that the longing for pleasure is placed in woman just as in man: and that with women that longing is a sin, demanding expiation, if the yearning for pleasure is not ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler

... weakest, the least resolute, or the most avaricious, staid behind. Such as could not make up their minds to part from their booty, and to forsake fortune which was forsaking them, were surprised in the midst of their hesitation. Next day the savage Cossacks were seen amid all this wealth, still covetous of the squalid and tattered garments of the unfortunate creatures who had become their prisoners: they stripped them, and then collecting them in troops, drove them along naked on the snow, by hard blows with ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... of Bishop Watson's character simply from such samples as these, we might conclude that he was a covetous, unreasonably discontented, and worldly-minded man. But this would be a very unfair conclusion to arrive at. The Bishop gives us only one, and that the weakest side of his character. He was most ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... the hard hands of peasants their vile trash By any indirection. I did send 75 To you for gold to pay my legions, Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius? Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so? When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, To lock such rascal counters from his friends, 80 Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts, Dash him ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... Jay Gould eagerly stepped in. Where others saw cessation of plunder, he spied the richest possibilities for a new onslaught. For years he had been a covetous spectator of the operations of the Credit Mobilier; and, of course, had not been able to contain himself from attempting to get a hand in its stealings. He and Fisk had repeatedly tried to storm their way in, and had carried trumped-up cases into ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... came suddenly into my mind and bewildered me; but in a little I was sure of it. I need not give long instances—but I saw, or thought I saw, that when the mind of the man or woman was pure and pitiful, the light was pure and clear, but that when the thoughts were selfish, or covetous, or angry, or unclean, there came a darkness into the light, as when you drop a little ink into clear water. Few came to see me; and I suppose that they were full of pity and perhaps a little love for me in my helpless state, so that the light about them was pure and even; but one ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... vivid picture of the medical customs of the time. The instruction for the immediate coming of the physician to his patient runs as follows: "When the doctor enters the dwelling of his patient, he should not appear haughty, nor covetous, but should greet with kindly, modest demeanor those who are present, and then seating himself near the sick man accept the drink which is offered him (sic) and praise in a few words the beauty ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... same reason that young man's coarse allusions, even to himself, filled him with a stealthy glee; causing him to rub his hands and chuckle covertly, as if he said in his sleeve, 'I taught him. I trained him. This is the heir of my bringing-up. Sly, cunning, and covetous, he'll not squander my money. I worked for this; I hoped for this; it has been the great end ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... the Traveller, 'wherefore did he leave A flock that knew his saintly worth so well?' 'Why,' said the Landlord, 'Sir, it so befell He heard unluckily of our intent To do him a great honour; and you know He was not covetous of fame below, And so by stealth one night ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... a man of his word, was George Bross; not for anything would he have gone back on his promise to keep secret that afternoon's titillating discovery; likewise he was a covetous soul, loath to forfeit the promised treat; withal he was human (after his kind) and since reprisals were not barred by their understanding, he began then and there to ponder the same. One way or another, that day's humiliation must be balanced; else he might never again hold up his head ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... took great pains to correct this evil, especially on Ellen's account; for as Matilda was not covetous, she was ever ready to share with her only companion the raisins and almonds, figs, gingerbread, biscuits, or comfits, which she was continually munching; and this Mrs. Harewood had a particular objection to, not only because it is bad for the health, and lays the foundation ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland

... confess'd that he is thine, And I myself am mortgaged to thy will. {425} Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still. But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, For thou art covetous and he is kind. He learn'd but surety-like to write for me, Under that bond that him as fast doth bind. The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, Thou usurer, that putt'st forth all to use, And sue a friend came debtor for my sake; So him I lose through my unkind ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... general condition of the people: the children are half-starving and degenerate; the houses are full of vermin; an everlasting dull round of labour, of submission, and of sadness. On the other hand: ministers, governors of provinces, covetous, ambitious, full of vanity, and anxious ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... Baltimore still claimed the Marylanders' allegiance. On what grounds?—for since the king from whom he derived his power was done away with, so must be the derivative power. Baltimore stood between them and republicanism. To give edge to the predicament, the colony was menaced by covetous Virginia on one hand, and by fugitive Charles II., with a governor of his own manufacture, on the other. Calamity seemed ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... by Nelson the Mozelle battery, was carried before daylight of July 19, and before dark all the outposts were in the hands of the British. "I could have wished to have had a little part in the storm," wrote Nelson, characteristically covetous of strenuous action, "if it was only to have placed the ladders and pulled away the palisadoes. However, we did the part allotted to us." That day a summons was sent to the garrison, but rejected, and work upon batteries to breach the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... and not Persian troops were destined to subdue them, but the deeply important consideration that an armed Russian force had crossed the frontier and was encamped within twenty miles of Meshed-Meshed, upon which covetous Russian eyes have rested ever since the days of ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... last words and breath to utter what was like him. He pronounced his former friend "a very dangerous man, altogether hated of the people and the States;"—"a lewd sinner, nursled in revolutions; a most covetous, bribing fellow, caring for nothing but to bear the sway and grow rich;"—"a man who had played many parts, both lewd and audacious;"—"a very knave, a traitor to his country;"—"the most ungrateful wretch alive, a hater of the Queen ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Bar. She subsisted on a small pension from the French Court, aided by an occasional gratuity from the Stuarts; to which the annuity paid for my board formed a desirable addition. She was not ill-tempered, nor very covetous—neither beat me nor starved me—but she was so completely trammelled by rank and prejudices, so awfully profound in genealogy, and so bitterly keen, poor lady, in British, politics, that I sometimes thought ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... Spanish colonies had won their independence the nations of Europe looked upon them with a covetous eye. They would dearly have liked to snap up some of these weak countries, which Spain had been unable to hold, but the great republic of the United States stood as their protector, and none of them felt it quite safe to step over that threatening bar to ambition, the ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... absent sailor died away into complete indifference, unmingled with curiosity: for everybody knew the full extent of their neighbours' possessions; and the poor furniture of Meg's room, where the box lay well hidden and unsuspected under the bedstead, excited no covetous desires. The tenant of the back attic, a girl whom Meg herself had seen no oftener than once or twice, was away on a visit of six weeks, having been committed to a House of Correction for being ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton

... feudal proprietor, of adding on new fiefs and new immunities, of increasing his importance and independence in proportion to the hourly increasing strength and claims of the overlord, the king, who casts covetous eyes upon him—the husband has not married for love; he has had his love affairs with the wives of other men in his day, or may still have them; this lady is a mere feudal necessity, she is required to give him a dower and give him an heir, that is all. If the husband does not love, how much less ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee

... when power seems to be an expiation and when the governed regard obedience as fatality. Many leave a society without banners; where opposing forces only unite to overthrow good. I do not think that any man would give himself to God from a covetous motive. Some men have looked upon the priesthood as a means of regenerating our country; but, according to my poor lights, a priest-patriot is a meaningless thing. The priest can only belong to God. I did not wish ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... thing, it was the same day where Michael Flannery (turns to him) came in an' told me of you being grown so covetous you had made away with your dog, by reason ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory

... oars, and was richly adorned with captured arms and with cloths of purple and scarlet; so that, the vessel rowing slowly against the stream, the Romans that crowded on the shore to meet him had a foretaste of his following triumph. But the soldiers, who had cast a covetous eye on the treasures of Perseus, when they did not obtain as much as they thought they deserved, were secretly enraged and angry with Aemilius for this, but openly complained that he had been a severe and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... eastern parts of Ireland, however, a fresh stream of English adventurers continued to flow, as aggressive and covetous as their means and prudence permitted; calling so much of the country as they were able to wrench from the Irish "the English Pale", which fluctuated in extent with their fortunes; and, when compelled to pay tribute to Irish chiefs, calling it "black rent", to indicate how they ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... a moment at the history of the seizure of Malta. For generations the value of this citadel had been known. All the strong nations of Europe had looked with covetous eyes upon it. But it was a difficult thing to find any pretext for its capture. It was held by the Knights of St. John, the decrepit remnant of an order whose heroism had many times been the shield of Christendom against the Turk, and whose praise had once ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the man who builds his fame On ruins of another's name: As prudes, who prudishly declare They by a sister scandaled are; As scribblers, covetous of praise, By slandering, snatch themselves the bays; Beauties and bards, alike, are prone To snatch at honours not their own. As Lesbia listens, all the whister, To hear some scandal of a sister. How can soft souls, which sigh for sueings, Rejoice ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... sent a polite message by our messengers." Hugh answered simply that he knew the king had taken great trouble about his election, so it was his business to keep the king from spiritual dangers, to coerce the oppressor and to dismiss the covetous nonsuited. It would be useless and stupid to come to court for either matter, for the king's discretion was prompt to notice proper action and quick to approve the right. Hugh was irresistible. The king embraced him, asked ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... from the gracious idealism of the Romances. The emperors and the admirals, perhaps even their fair and obliging daughters, were not personages unknown to the contemporaries of the Norman conquerors of Italy and Sicily, or to the first Crusaders. The faithful and ferocious, covetous and indomitable, pious and lawless spirit, which hardly dropped the sword except to take up the torch, was, poetic presentation and dressing apart, not so very different from the general temper of man after the ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... stammered in reply to her ladyship's remarks; my whole soul was absorbed in the contemplation of the intoxicating loveliness of the gem. That a Palais Royal deception! Incredible! My fingers twitched, my breath came short and fierce with the lust of possession. She must have seen the covetous glare in my eyes. A look of gratified spiteful complacency overspread her features, as she swept on ahead and descended the stairs before me. I followed her to the drawing-room door. She stopped suddenly, and murmuring ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... begged her naughty brother not to deprive poor Giles of his rabbit; but Charles was a wicked and covetous boy; he therefore took Snowball from Giles, and carried her home in his arms, and put her in a box. He went into the fields and gathered some green herbs for her to eat, and said: "I am glad I have got Snowball; now I shall be ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... spoke of all his wanderings up and down Hind; till Kim, who had loved him without reason, now loved him for fifty good reasons. So they enjoyed themselves in high felicity, abstaining, as the Rule demands, from evil words, covetous desires; not over-eating, not lying on high beds, nor wearing rich clothes. Their stomachs told them the time, and the people brought them their food, as the saying is. They were lords of the villages of Aminabad, Sahaigunge, ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... one at the Capitol. Then there was a suite of marvellous salons, still resplendent with ancient luxury, hung with the rarest stuffs, and retaining some unique specimens of old-time furniture, on which covetous antiquaries kept their eyes fixed, whilst waiting and hoping for the inevitable future ruin. And one of these apartments, the little Saloon of the Mirrors, was particularly famous. Of circular shape and Louis XV style, it was surrounded by mirrors in rococo frames, extremely ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... strikingly contrasted than was the character of their population. The Franks, who had been for a while under the Roman sway, showed a compound of the violence of savage life and the corruption of civilized society. They were covetous and treacherous, but made excellent soldiers; and at this epoch, which intervened between the power of imperial Rome and that of Germany, the Frank might be morally considered as a borderer on the frontiers of the Middle ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... Though so covetous and crafty himself, however, Pomaree had no mercy to show for the delinquencies of others. On one occasion, when a poor "cookee" had been detected in the commission of some petty theft about the vessel, he was loud in his exhortations to the captain to hang him up immediately. ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... Seneca, in one of his letters, mentions that his wife's maid, Harpaste, had nearly lost her eyesight, but "she knoweth not she is blind, she saith the house is dark. This that seemeth ridiculous unto us in her, happeneth unto us all. No man understandeth that he is covetous, or avaricious. He saith, I am not ambitious, but no man can otherwise live in Rome; I am not sumptuous, but the ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... reported, are given over to all the evil things of the world, neglect the service of God altogether. They live with harlots and mistresses publicly and continuously, within the precincts of the monastery and without. Some of them, who are covetous of honour and promotion, and desirous therefore of pleasing your cupidity, have stolen and made away with the chalices and other jewels of the church. They have even sacrilegiously extracted the precious stones from the very shrine ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... had not scrupled to rifle the Deerhurst vineyards of their most attractive vines, and the cluster of fruit on which Mabel had fixed a covetous eye was certainly a tempting one. The rays from two Chinese lanterns, hung near it, brought out its juicy lusciousness with even more than daylight clearness, and Mabel's mouth fairly watered ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... Christmas Carol at the beginning of the lesson. If they have read the first four staves of the carol in a general way, they will be in a better position to study intensively the last stave, or chapter, which is the lesson in the Reader. They will understand the causes that have changed this "covetous old sinner" to the man "who knew how to keep Christmas Day well". This lesson should be taken up near Christmas. The pupils will discuss Stave I, after having ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... popular belief in Norway that there is a race of fairies or magicians living underground, who are very covetous of cattle; and that, to gratify their taste for large herds and flocks, they help themselves with such as graze on the mountains; making dwarfs of them to enable them to enter crevices of the ground, in order ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... prince, and he deserved all he possessed, for he only lived to do good. Such a man was soon known and talked of. A giant lived a great many miles off: this man was altogether as wicked as your father was good; he was in his heart envious, covetous, and cruel; but he had the art of concealing those vices. He was poor, and wished to enrich himself at any rate. Hearing your father spoken of, he formed the design of becoming acquainted with him, hoping to ingratiate himself into your father's ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... forehead gathered in a soft little frown; he whom she sought was not in sight. She got a glimpse of Mrs. Pence and Medora Giles seated side by side in a far corner, and of Little O'Grady hovering near, with a covetous eye upon her aunt's profile; and she took the remaining space in a quick little walk that was almost ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... difficulty, yet at present of great expectation, not whether ye will gratify, were it no more than so, but whether ye will hearken to the just petition of many thousands best affected both to Religion and to this your return, or whether ye will satisfy (which you never can) the covetous pretences and demands of insatiable Hirelings, whose disaffection ye well know hath to yourselves and your resolutions? That I, though among many others in this common concernment, interpose to your deliberations what ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... producing a strong magnifying glass, "here's a connoisseur whose revelations you may trust. Examine these facets with its help," and again the Sepoy placed the sapphire within reach of the covetous Raikes, who promptly availed ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... and will. After all, Frank, I think that the pious godly people have the best of it in this world. Let them be ever so covetous, ever so false, ever so hard-hearted, the mere fact that they must keep up appearances, makes them comfortable to those around them. Poor papa was not comfortable to me. A little hypocrisy, a little sacrifice to the feelings of the world, may be ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... fighting the white man's battle against paganism. Solitary in her preference for the Japanese, expressed in the form of an astute and fortunate alliance, England gloried when her Oriental ally revealed the weakness of the vaunted power of the north that had dared to cast covetous eyes at India. All these nations hold Asiatic possessions, each has aspired to have a say in Chinese affairs, and each confesses to having a panacea for the innumerable ills of the Celestial Empire—each is hungry, likewise, to extend her ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... obtain, O sweet reward, And walk the garden of the Bard?— But thy employ, the year throughout, Is wandering the White Tower about, Moulding and stamping coin with care, The farthing small and shilling fair. Let for a month thy Mint lie still, Covetous be not, little Will; Fly from the birth-place of the smoke, Nor in that wicked city choke; O come, though money's charms be strong, And if thou come I'll give thee song, A draught of water, hap what may, Pure air to make thy spirits gay And welcome from an honest ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... in exile for evermore." "Certes," quoth Dame Prudence, "this were a cruel sentence, and much against reason. For ye be rich enough, and have no need of other men's goods; and ye might lightly [easily] in this wise get you a covetous name, which is a vicious thing, and ought to be eschewed of every good man: for, after the saying of the Apostle, covetousness is root of all harms. And therefore it were better for you to lose much good of your own, than for to take of their good in this manner. For better it is to lose ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... you up to? Ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious, in-sa-ti-a-ble old fence?' said the man, seating himself deliberately. 'I wonder they don't murder you! I would if I was them. If I'd been your 'prentice, I'd have done it long ago, and—no, I couldn't have sold you afterwards, for you're fit for nothing but keeping as ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... choice, which she would have abandoned, it would have been Philander, as not in so good circumstances at that time to gratify all her extravagances of expense; but she would not endure to think of losing either: she was for two reasons covetous of both, and swore fidelity to both, protesting each the only man; and she was now contriving in her thoughts, how to play the jilt most artificially; a help-meet, though natural enough to her sex, she had not yet much essayed, and never to this purpose: she knew well she should have need of ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... doubt, but not more hard than salutary. Salutary in two ways. First, as a test of the student's own earnestness of purpose. For in these days of revival of interest in our elder literature, it has become much the custom for flippant persons, who are covetous of being thought "well-read" by their less-enterprising companions, to skim over the surface of the pages of the wisest and noblest of our great teachers, either not understanding, or misunderstanding them. "I have read Chaucer, Shakspere, ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding

... soul, that climbing hour by hour the silver-shining stair That leads to God's great treasure-house, grew covetous; and there ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... may be supposed to have learned from Hobbes; and his morality was such as naturally proceeds from loose opinions. His sentiments with respect to women he picked up in the court of Charles; and his principles concerning property were such as a gaming-table supplies. He was censured as covetous, and has been defended by an instance of inattention to his affairs; as if a man might not at once be corrupted by avarice and idleness. He is said, however, to have had much tenderness, and to have been very ready to apologize for ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... the Romans charged him with cruelty, the Carthaginians with covetousness; and it is true that he hated as only Oriental natures know how to hate, and that a general who never fell short of money and stores can hardly have been other than covetous. But though anger and envy and meanness have written his history, they have not been able to mar the pure and noble image which it presents. Laying aside wretched inventions which furnish their own refutation, and some things which his lieutenants, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... punishment of our ingratitude in not being thankefull but forgettfull that by his mercye we were delivered from such bondage and calamitie as before time we had suffered. Justly likewise were we punished for our greedy desires of present gaine and proffit, wherin many showed themselves insatiable and covetous; we beinge too secure in trustinge of a treacherous enimie, the Salvadges, they, whilest we entertained them frendley in our houses, tooke their opportunities and suddenly fell uppon us, killing and murdering very many of our people, burninge and devastinge their houses and plantations, this happeninge ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various

... appearance of filth and rags, which he dignifies with the appellation of stern republicanism and virtuous poverty; and thus, by means of a thread-bare coat out at elbows, wooden shoes, and a red woollen cap, the rich hope to secure their wealth, and the covetous and intriguing to acquire lucrative employment.—Rolland, I think, was the founder of these modern Franciscans, and with this miserable affectation he machinated the death of the King, and, during some months, procured for himself the exclusive ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... from each side in a vain attempt to cover the baldness, made him seem older than he really was. Count Landrassy had lived his life in many capitals up to the limit of his vitality, and was still covetous of notice from the sex who had, in a checkered career, given him much pleasure, and had provided him with far more anxiety. But he was almost uncannily able and astute, as every man found who entered the arena of diplomacy to treat with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... know a better one than this of Naaman and the little maid from Samaria. It is full of human nature; that is, it shows that people acted and felt three thousand years ago just as they do now: they were kind and sympathetic, and proud and grateful and covetous and deceitful, just as people are nowadays. And the story has a fine romantic setting; that is, its incidents take hold of our fancy and charm us;—a little girl stolen in war and carried to a foreign ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... country. They are very much afraid of those people, and will cease their trade with this city, and thus that will be lost—even more than the great wealth which the ship "San Felipe" [43] carried, which arrived in their country in the past year, ninety-six. That wealth made them covetous of it; and perhaps their principal intention is to come here and attack these islands. It is not worthy of the Spanish reputation to allow this barbarian to use us thus, without experiencing our power through some injury. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... to take Men as they are.—How to regard a miser; a passionate man; a slow man; the covetous; those ruled by their wives; the boasting; the mild tempered; the bully. Six sorts of people from whom you are not to expect much aid or sympathy in life: the sordid, the lazy, the busy, the rich, those miserable from ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... or those who would be so very devout that they would neither speak to them authoritatively nor admonish them with kindness to any effect. The Lord has caused us to see this example that we might know that these people are still covetous, and that almost all of them are attached to the world and to themselves—that is, they are worldly people, which shows the holiness of the spirit by which they are actuated! As regards Anna Salters, it was said she was mundane, carnal, covetous, and ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... dangerous voyages; the ambitious, in his passionate pursuit of honour; the conqueror, in his earnest desire of victory; the politician, in his deep-laid designs; the wanton, in his pleasing charms of beauty; the covetous, in his unwearied heaping-up of treasure; and the prodigal, in his general and extravagant indulgence.—Thus far it may be well;—but, so mistaken are we in our road, as to run on in the very opposite tract, which leads ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... famous, but it is always a good one—always useful and noble. If we follow God's leadings, we shall always come out right. "Let every man," says the apostle, "abide in the calling in which he is called." Let him not be impatient of his own gift, nor covetous of another's; let him not be uneasy in his place, nor straining for something beyond his reach. But if faithful every day to his own gift, he may be sure that it will grow at last into something truly good, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... make any use of this gate was because the corpse would have been above his head as he drove through. He then, I say, opened the tomb and found not indeed money but the corpse, with writing which said thus: "If thou hadst not been insatiable of wealth and basely covetous, thou wouldest not have opened ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... to this conversation with interest was Louis Wheeler. Rodney did not fail to see the covetous gleam of his eyes when the ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger

... time when he was upon the Bench had the credit, I do not know how well deserved it was, of not being much given to hospitality. He was never covetous, and he was very fond of society and conversation. But I fancy he had some fashions of his own in housekeeping which he thought were not quite up to the ways of modern life. At any rate, he was, so far as I know, never known ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... conduct: the capitalist party, sorely offended by him, set all means of intrigue and corruption at work to effect his recall. Daily the Forum echoed with just and unjust complaints regarding the foolhardy, the covetous, the un-Roman, the traitorous general. The senate so far yielded to the complaints regarding the union of such unlimited power—two ordinary governorships and an important extraordinary command—in the hands of such a man, as to assign the province of Asia to ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... been distinguished for his good nature and benevolent disposition, was entirely free from every appearance of avarice,... but after this event he was the most fractious, quarrelsome, discontented, and covetous wretch alive' (p. 220). ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... public interest, I fought the case at the king's judgment-seat, and succeeded in preventing the enforcement of the sale. I rescued the consular Paulinus from the gaping jaws of the court bloodhounds, who in their covetous hopes had already made short work of his wealth. To save Albinus, who was of the same exalted rank, from the penalties of a prejudged charge, I exposed myself to the ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius

... guides and beaters. On his return he had called them to the door of his tent, opened one of his trunks, and out of a bag, containing two or three hundred rupees, paid them liberally for their trouble; one of the party he noticed appeared to eye the bag with a greedy, covetous eye, but he said nothing, and the party left, seeming well satisfied with what they had received. After indulging in a bath he was ready for the evening meal, which consisted of chicken, curry or broiled partridge with several etceteras, which he washed down with a bottle of Allsopps' pale ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... another tasted of the stream. It was but too true; no sake, but clear, cold water was there. Crestfallen and out of temper, the covetous ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... a night in the Sauveterre jail, in order to have an interview with her betrothed, who was accused of incendiarism and murder; to remain there all night, alone, absolutely at the mercy of the jailer, a hard, coarse, covetous man— ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... anxiety; repentest, yet grievest not; art angry, yet serene; changest Thy works, Thy purpose unchanged; receivest again what Thou findest, yet didst never lose; never in need, yet rejoicing in gains; never covetous, yet exacting usury. Thou receivest over and above, that Thou mayest owe; and who hath aught that is not Thine? Thou payest debts, owing nothing; remittest debts, losing nothing. And what had I now said, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... himself in the back room, cooking some sort of a meal over an alcohol stove. Zerkow was a Polish Jew—curiously enough his hair was fiery red. He was a dry, shrivelled old man of sixty odd. He had the thin, eager, cat-like lips of the covetous; eyes that had grown keen as those of a lynx from long searching amidst muck and debris; and claw-like, prehensile fingers—the fingers of a man who accumulates, but never disburses. It was impossible to look at Zerkow and not know ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... enough to accept the hard-earned money of these poor players, and, nevertheless, to interrupt their performance, carrying them off to be imprisoned and punished for their breach of the law. But their great trouble arose from the frequent seizure of their wardrobe by the covetous soldiers. The clothes worn by the players upon the stage were of superior quality—fine dresses were of especial value in times prior to the introduction of scenery—and the loss was hard to bear. The public, it was feared, would be loath to believe in the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... have direction of the affairs of the community should be such as know their duties,[288] are pure minded, and not covetous; their word for the welfare of the ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya

... a Prussian head looks all round the horizon, not so much for something to do that would count for good in the records of the earth, as simply for something good to get. He gazes upon the land and upon the sea with the same covetous steadiness, for he has become of late a maritime eagle, and has learned to box the compass. He gazes north and south, and east and west, and is inclined to look intemperately upon the waters of the Mediterranean when they are blue. The disappearance ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer

... the king refuses the reward, and, as a completion of his perfidy, adds perjury to his false words. "Thou shalt not escape unpunished," says the king of the sea; and he drives all his waters towards the shores of covetous Troy. He turns the land, too, into the form of the sea, and carries off the wealth of the husbandmen, and overwhelms the fields with waves. Nor is this punishment sufficient: the daughter of the king, is also demanded for a sea monster. Chained to the rugged rocks, Alcides delivers ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... noon, they reached the capital of Wooli. The asses were unloaded under a tree, without the gates of the town. It was five o'clock before Park obtained an audience of the king, to whom he carried as presents, a pair of silver-mounted pistols, ten dollars, some amber and coral; but his Majesty being covetous, and considering it beneath his dignity to receive so little, Park was obliged to add fifteen dollars more, and double the quantity of coral and amber. The king also begged a blanket to shield his royal ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... thinking? If my letters should happen to get to you when you are sitting by the fire and doing nothing, or when you are gaping at the window, may they not be very proper flaps, to put you in mind that you might employ your time much better? I knew once a very covetous, sordid fellow, who used frequently to say, "Take care of the pence; for the pounds will take care of themselves." This was a just and sensible reflection in a miser. I recommend to you to take care of ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... possessed of considerable wealth, and as the number of persons by whose assistance they may rise is comparatively small, the government is, if I may use the expression, put up to a sort of auction. In democracies, on the contrary, those who are covetous of power are very seldom wealthy, and the number of citizens who confer that power is extremely great. Perhaps in democracies the number of men who might be bought is by no means smaller, but buyers are rarely to be met with; and, besides, it would be necessary to ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... to his grandson Mautenar, the son of Marasar, who had probably died before his father. Two young and inexperienced princes confront one the other in the two neighbour lands, each distrustful of his rival, each covetous of glory, each hopeful of success if war should break out. True, by treaty the two kings were friends and allies—by treaty the two nations were bound to abstain from all aggression by the one upon the other: but such ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... but there is reason to believe that this was a branch of industry in which they particularly excelled. We know that as early as the time of Joshua a Babylonian garment had been imported into Palestine, and was of so rare a beauty as to attract the covetous regards of Achan, in common with certain large masses of the precious metals. The very ancient cylinder figured above must belong to a time at least five or six centuries earlier; upon it we observe flounced and fringed garments, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... any particular period in the world's history, we may doubt whether the words of the Apostle St. Paul, describing what shall come to pass in what he calls "the last days," ever touched any people so closely as they do those of our times and country. "Men," he says, "shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemous, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God." ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... themselves already possessed of what their Genius inclined them to, and so bend all their Ambition to excel in what is out of their Reach: Thus they destroy the Use of their natural Talents, in the same manner as covetous Men do their Quiet and Repose; they can enjoy no Satisfaction in what they have, because of the absurd Inclination they are possessed with ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... "Covetous though we were, we could not possibly take more than two thousand livres weight of gold, which meant six journeys across the prison to the gondola. The sentinel at the water gate was bribed with a bag containing ten livres weight of gold; and as far as the two gondoliers, ...
— Facino Cane • Honore de Balzac

... prepared to go on board the Ready; and as I was to pass Sunday with them, it was deemed prudent to send my boat to a safe anchorage-ground on the east side of Horse Shoe Bay, where, moored among some islands, my floating home would be protected from boisterous seas and covetous fishermen. ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... victory there hides defeat; The spirit's murdered though the body survives, Except the cause for which, a people strives Burn with no covetous, foul heat. Fights she against herself who infamously draws The sword against man's secret spiritual laws. But thou, England, because a bitter heel Hath sought to bruise the brain, the sensitive will, The conscience ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman

... loving-kindnesses, But now, dispirited and reticent, It walked the moonlight like a homeless thing. O, how to cleanse me of the cowardice! How to be just! Was I a mother, then, A mother, and not love her child as well As her own covetous and morbid love? Was it for this the Comforter had come, Smiling at me and pointing with His hand? —What had He meant to have me think ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody

... end of three weeks I was so exhausted with sheer hunger that I could hardly stand on my legs. One day, when my miserable, covetous thief of a master had gone out, an angel, in the likeness of a tinker, knocked at the door, and inquired whether I had anything to mend. Suddenly a light flashed upon me. "I have lost the key of this ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... shipwreck spread quickly through the country, and the covetous savages flocked from all quarters, in such numbers, as could not fail to excite suspicion: they soon came to blows, and several of them lost their lives. The furious women who could not reach the ship to pillage, fell upon us, and tore from ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... May no pain grieve me To see flow over The cup my brother Or neighbour hath, with Thy blessings so free. Covetous burning And unchristian yearning For ill possessions, Blot out such transgressions, Cast them, O Father! ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... only folly; Wanton love is too unholy; Greedy love is covetous; Idle love is frivolous; But the gracious love is it That doth prove the ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various

... Indians made but little use of the major part of their land; vast tracts lay untrodden save by hunters. Naturally, as the white population grew and the lands open for settlement became scarcer and poorer, the rich tribal holdings were looked upon with covetous eyes. In the decade following the War of 1812, when cotton cultivation was spreading rapidly over the southern interior, the demand that they be thrown open for occupation to white ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... good men, and particularly by Antonio, a young merchant of Venice; and Shylock as much hated Antonio, because he used to lend money to people in distress, and would never take any interest for the money he lent; therefore there was great enmity between this covetous Jew and the generous merchant Antonio. Whenever Antonio met Shylock on the Rialto, (or Exchange) he used to reproach him with his usuries and hard dealings, which the Jew would bear with seeming patience, while he secretly ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... real cause of the downfall of the Templars was probably the enormous wealth of the order. There had not been wanting indications for some years of covetous eyes and itching hands turned toward the possession of the Knights. Sometimes complaints were made because the rents of their estates were all sent out of the country; sometimes the grievance alleged was that they were exempted from paying ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... a wide level sunny space, where young grass was already springing, stood a little figure in blue, with yellow hair flying about in the breeze; a tiny hand filled with grass, held out toward the doubtful yet covetous Simon Jr. The child stood perfectly still, her square little back turned to her new observer, while the calf stumped cautiously toward her. At a safe distance he stopped and sniffed at the tiny hand, then ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... him as though he were speaking to her the sweetest gospel. And he, too, believed himself. He was easy of heart perhaps, but not deceitful; anxious enough for his position in the world, but not meanly covetous. Had she been distasteful to him as a woman, he would have refused to make himself rich by the means that had been suggested to him. As it was, he desired her as much as her money, and had she given herself to him then would never have remembered,—would never have known that the match had been ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... a roughness, but only achieved a tentative friendliness. Stebbins hesitated for a second; a suspicious look came into the farmer's misty blue eyes. Then Stebbins, mindful of his prison record and fiercely covetous of his new home, gave another name. The name of his maternal grandfather seemed suddenly to loom up in printed characters before his eyes, and he gave it glibly. "David Anderson," he said, and he did not realize a lie. Suddenly the name seemed his ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... will pardon that hardness of heart which it has created in man, and which the affairs of the world seem almost to require; but that it will extend no such forgiveness to the feminine creation. It may be necessary that a man should be stiff-necked, self-willed, eager on the world, perhaps even covetous and given to worldly lusts. But for a woman, it behoves her to crush herself, so that she may be at all points submissive, self-denying, and much-suffering. She should be used to thorns in the flesh, and to thorns in the spirit too. Whatever may be the thing she wants, that thing she should ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope



Words linked to "Covetous" :   prehensile, avaricious, acquisitive, envious, desirous, wishful, grasping, jealous, covetousness, grabby, greedy



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