greed
/ɡɹiːd/
greed noun: a selfish or excessive desire for more than is needed or deserved, especially of money, wealth, food, or other possessions.
Noun
greed (usually uncountable, plural greeds)
- A selfish or excessive desire for more than is needed or deserved, especially of money, wealth, food, or other possessions.
- His greed was his undoing.
- […]But when I had bestridden the plank, quoth I to myself, "Thou deserveth all that betideth thee. All this is decreed to me of Allah (whose name be exalted!), to turn me from my greed of gain, whence ariseth all that I endure, for I have wealth galore."1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 564
- Synonyms:
- avarice, covetousness, greediness, rapacity, gluttony, covetise, cupidity, Mammon, rapaciousness, ravin
Verb
greed (third-person singular simple present greeds, present participle greeding, simple past and past participle greeded)
- To desire in a greedy manner, or to act on such a desire.
- The ravens sit greeding, / And watching, and heeding: / Thoro' wind, over water, / Comes scent of the slaughter, / And ravens sit greeding / Their share of the bones.1848, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XI, in Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings; […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, book XI (The Norman Schemer, and the Norwegian Sea-king), page...
- Hearing these words he arose, because indeed he greeded for her, and came up behind her as she rested upon her elbows and knees and bending in hand his prickle nailed it into her coynte and did manly devoir.1885, Sir Richard Francis Burton, A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights
- To play greedily or aggressively in a high-risk, high-reward scenario.
greed meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
greed in Hindi
- selfish desire for more than is needed
- लालच lālac, लोभ lobh
greed in Tamil
- selfish desire for more than is needed
- பேராசை pērācai
greed in Marathi
- greed, intense desire, avarice
- लोभ lobh
- greed, avarice, avidity
- हाव hāv
- greed
- लालसा lālsā
greed in Urdu
- selfish desire for more than is needed
- طمع tam'a, لالچ lālac
More languagesFewer languages
- greed in Bengali
- লোভ, লালসা, অতিরিক্ত পাওয়ার আকাঙ্ক্ষা
- greed in Telugu
- దురాశ durāśa
- greed in Malayalam
- അത്യാഗ്രഹം atyāgrahaṁ
- greed in Kannada
- ಹಂಕರ haṅkara, ಹಂಕೃತಿ haṅkṛti
- greed in Punjabi
- ਲਾਲਚ lālac
- greed in Gujarati
- લોભ, લોભીપણું
- greed in Odia
- ଲୋଭ, ଲୋଭୀତା, ଲୋଭକୁ
- greed in Sanskrit
- गृद्धि gṛddhi
- greed in Assamese
- লোভ lübh, খক khok
- greed in Nepali
- लोभ lobh
- greed in Arabic
- جَشَع jašaʕ, طَمَع ṭamaʕ
- greed in Indonesian
- rakus, serakah
- greed in Persian
- حرص hers
- greed in Thai
- โลภะ loo-pá
- greed in Vietnamese
- sự tham lam
Examples of greed in a sentence
- Your market gardener is not a well-breeched man, dependant as he is on the imponderables of glut, the inequities of distribution, and the greeds of wholesaler and retailer.1954, Thomas Firbank, Log Hut, page 194:
- She does not display voracities and greeds like a number of patients […] nor has she shown any significant tendency to possessiveness, grievance, paranoia, or mania.1973, Oliver Sacks, Awakenings:
- The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.1987, Stanley Weiser, Oliver Stone, Wall Street (motion picture), spoken by Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas):
- This conniving bastard has greeded the farm off an old man and I end up with nothing.2008, Leonard Warwick, The Unspoken, page 284:
Synonyms of greed
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of greed
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | greeds |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | greeds |
| present participle | greeding |
| past participle | greeded |
| past | greeded |
Origin of greed
c. 1600. Back-formation from greedy.
Words formed from greed
Phrases with greed
Words that rhyme with greed
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- weed
- proceed
- stampede
- concede
- accede
- deed
- exceed
- need
- bede
- knead
- mislead
- plead
- rede
- swede
- cede
- creed
- godspeed
- heed
- intercede
- keyed
- leed
- meed
- precede
- recede
- tumbleweed
- a friend in need is a friend indeed
- beread
- he'd
- indeed
- interbreed
- kneed
- mead
- secede
- she'd
- sneed
- steed
- supersede
- underfeed
- we'd
- ye'd
- agreed
- anasheed
- aniseed
- atheed
- caid
- co-feed
- cofeed
- counterplead
Questions about greed
- What does greed mean?
- Greed means a selfish or excessive desire for more than is needed or deserved, especially of money, wealth, food, or other possessions.
- What is greed in Hindi?
- Greed in Hindi is लालच (lālac), लोभ (lobh). See Greed meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use greed in a sentence?
- Your market gardener is not a well-breeched man, dependant as he is on the imponderables of glut, the inequities of distribution, and the greeds of wholesaler and retailer.
- What part of speech is greed?
- Greed can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce greed?
- Greed is pronounced /ɡɹiːd/.
- What is the plural of greed?
- The plural of greed is greeds.
Words near greed in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: greed (page history and authors); लालसा (Marathi) (page history and authors); Greed (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ಹಂಕರ (Kannada) (page history and authors); greed (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); greed (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); गृद्धि (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-greed.ogg.
Cite this entry: “greed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/greed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.