avarice
/ˈav(ə)rɪs
/noun [mass noun]
Extreme greed for wealth or material gain: he was rich beyond the dreams of avarice...
- Being free from avarice, the material wealth has absolutely no significance for Shiva.
- The staggering truth, as we discovered, was that the degree of avarice and greed was so much that you could actually work yourself all the way up.
- In a time when avarice and greed is epidemic, why is a belief system that targets desire and possessions as the cause of unhappiness drawing hundreds of new followers each year?
Synonyms
greed, acquisitiveness, cupidity, covetousness, avariciousness, rapacity, rapaciousness, graspingness, materialism, mercenariness;
meanness, miserliness
informal money-grubbing, money-grabbing, an itching palm
North American informal grabbiness
rare Mammonism, pleonexia
Origin
Middle English: from Old French, from Latin avaritia, from avarus 'greedy'.