greed
/ɡriːd
/noun [mass noun]
Intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food: mercenaries who had allowed greed to overtake their principles greed has taken over football the colonists' greed for African land...
- His greed and love of power, are of course, allowed to run in parallel by the laws of compulsory purchase.
- It has only bred and encouraged a race for greed and amassing wealth at the cost of the sufferers.
- In our age, the men who shake the planet for their own power and greed are called corrupters.
Synonyms
avarice, acquisitiveness, covetousness, rapacity, graspingness, cupidity, avidity, possessiveness, materialism;
mercenariness, predatoriness
informal money-grubbing, money-grabbing
North American informal grabbiness
rare Mammonism, pleonexia
gluttony, hunger, ravenousness, voraciousness, voracity, insatiability;
gourmandizing, gourmandism;
intemperance, overeating, overconsumption, self-indulgence
informal swinishness, piggishness, hoggishness, gutsiness
rare edacity, esurience
desire, urge, need, appetite, hunger, craving, longing, yearning, hankering, hungering, thirst, pining;
avidity, eagerness, enthusiasm, impatience
informal yen, itch
Origin
Late 16th century: back-formation from greedy.
Rhymes
- self-betrayal
- self-build
- self-builder
- applications development
- applications engineer
- applications engineering
- application service provider
- application services provider
- application software
- applications program
- applications programer
- applications programmer
- applications programming
- applications software
- applicative
- applicatively
- applicator
- applicatory
- applied
- applied linguistics
- appliedly
- applied psychology
- applier
- appliqué
- applotment