Word.ws English Dictionary

green-eyed monster

green-eyed monster noun: envy, jealousy, covetousness.

Noun

green-eyed monster (plural green-eyed monsters)

  1. (colloquial, usually) Envy, jealousy, covetousness.
    • [Iago:] Oh, beware my Lord, of iealouſie, / It is the greene-ey'd Monſter, which doth mocke / The meate it feeds on.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
    • She was not to be convinced, and so poor Mr. Graham, who was really exceedingly polite and affable to the ladies, was almost constantly provoking the green-eyed monster by his attentions to some one of the fair sex.1856, Mary Jane Holmes, chapter X, in ’Lena Rivers

Examples of green-eyed monster in a sentence

  • The eyes would be of the smoldering type, showing the green-eyed monster beneath.1916, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Bab, a Sub-Deb:
  • The green-eyed monster had bitten [Jeeves].1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XV, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

Forms of green-eyed monster

pluralgreen-eyed monsters

Origin of green-eyed monster

From green + eye + monster. Coined by William Shakespeare in his play Othello.

Words formed from green-eyed monster

Questions about green-eyed monster

What does green-eyed monster mean?
Green-eyed monster means envy, jealousy, covetousness.
How do you use green-eyed monster in a sentence?
The eyes would be of the smoldering type, showing the green-eyed monster beneath.
What part of speech is green-eyed monster?
Green-eyed monster is a noun.
What is the plural of green-eyed monster?
The plural of green-eyed monster is green-eyed monsters.

Words near green-eyed monster in the dictionary

  1. green-carders
  2. green-coat
  3. green-coats
  4. green-collar
  5. green-eyed
  6. green-eyed monster
  7. green-eyed monsters
  8. green-fingered
  9. green-finned
  10. green-flag
  11. green-flags

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: green-eyed monster (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-green-eyed monster.wav.

Cite this entry: “green-eyed monster.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/green-eyed_monster. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.