acquisitiveness

Noun

acquisitiveness (usually uncountable, plural acquisitivenesses)

1. (usually) The quality of being acquisitive; propensity to acquire property; desire of possession.
   • Collecting at its best is very far from mere acquisitiveness; it may become one of the most humanistic of occupations, seeking to illustrate, by the assembling of significant reliques, the march of the human spirit in its quest of beauty, and the aspirations that were [its] guide.1915, Arthur Davison Ficke, chapter 8, in Chats on Japanese Prints, New York: Frederick A. Stokes, page 409
   • If we win this war and have the Cotton Kingdom of our dreams, we still have lost, for we will become a different people and the old quiet ways will go. The world will be at our doors clamoring for cotton and we can command our own price. Then, I fear, we will become like the Yankees, at whose...1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter XI, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC
2. (usually) The faculty to which the phrenologists attribute the desire of acquiring and possessing.
   • Had she a little more of the organ of Acquisitiveness in her head—a little more of the love of property in her nature, she would take a good-sized sheet of paper and write plainly out, in her own queer but clear and legible hand, the story that has been narrated, the song that has been sung to her...1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “Two Lives”, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 266