covetousness
/ˈkʌvətəsnəs/
covetousness noun: immoderate desire for the possession of something, especially for wealth.
Noun
covetousness (usually uncountable, plural covetousnesses)
- Immoderate desire for the possession of something, especially for wealth.
- He which will yield to Fear. muſt neceſſarily yield to Covetouſneſs or any inordinate Deſire.1588, Jean La Placette, Of the Incurable Scepticism of the Church of Rome
- Covetouſneſs is the yelow Jaundice of the foul, which ariſes from the over-flowing of the heart with love to yellow gold, by which a Chriſtian is dull'd and deadned.1661, J. Johnson, The morning-exercise at Cripple-gate
covetousness meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam
covetousness in Tamil
- துராசை, அவா, தைனியம், துராக்கிரகம், இயமம், பொருளாசை
covetousness in Urdu
- حرص, لالچ, طمع
covetousness in Telugu
- covetousness, avarice
- అత్యాశ atyāśa
covetousness in Malayalam
- desire for the possession of something
- ലുബ്ധത lubdhata, അത്യാഗ്രഹം atyāgrahaṁ
More languagesFewer languages
- covetousness in Sanskrit
- लोभ lobha
- covetousness in Persian
- حرص hers
Examples of covetousness in a sentence
- Covetousness prevents all good, and is and inlet and encouragement to evil.1815, Samuel Lavington, Sermons and other discourses, Volume 1:
- In obvious compensation and opposition the fear of nothingness becomes the source of covetousness...1976, Jacques Ellul, The Ethics of Freedom, page 134:
Forms of covetousness
| plural | covetousnesses |
|---|
Origin of covetousness
From Middle English covatusnes, covetousnes, coveytousnesse; equivalent to covetous + -ness.
Questions about covetousness
- What does covetousness mean?
- Covetousness means immoderate desire for the possession of something, especially for wealth.
- What is covetousness in Tamil?
- Covetousness in Tamil is துராசை, அவா, தைனியம். See Covetousness meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use covetousness in a sentence?
- Covetousness prevents all good, and is and inlet and encouragement to evil.
- What part of speech is covetousness?
- Covetousness is a noun.
- How do you pronounce covetousness?
- Covetousness is pronounced /ˈkʌvətəsnəs/.
- What is the plural of covetousness?
- The plural of covetousness is covetousnesses.
Words near covetousness in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: covetousness (page history and authors); covetousness (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); covetousness (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); అత్యాశ (Telugu) (page history and authors); लोभ (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-covetousness.wav.
Cite this entry: “covetousness.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/covetousness. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.