[
UK
/kˈʌvətəsnəs/
]
NOUN
- an envious eagerness to possess something
- extreme greed for material wealth
- reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins)
How To Use covetousness In A Sentence
- It is true: but liberality baulkes, and feares covetousnesse and niggardize, more a great deale then prodigallity; so does zeale lukewarmnes and coldnesse, more then too much heate and forwardnesse; the defect is more opposite and dangerous to some vertues, then the excesse. A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich
- Second thing to be considered in it, to wit, the thing we are dehorted from, which is covetousness. Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. III.
- It is this covetousness that fuels corruption in public life and communalises politics.
- To explain every little mark of usury and covetousness, such as the mortgages, bonds, indentures, &c. the piece of candle stuck on a save-all, on the mantle-piece; the rotten furniture of the room, and the miserable contents of the dusty wardrobe, would be unnecessary: we shall only notice the more striking articles. The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency
- I say, it is but a specimen or taste of those numerous, or rather innumerable instances which might be produced; two of which especially I had thought to have spoken something more fully to; namely, the calling covetousness, good husbandry; and prodigality, generosity. Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. IV.
- ¶ Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things 'sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: in the which ye also walked sometime, when ye lived in them. Colossians 3.
- And what these are he himself explains: "Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence; and covetousness, which is idolatry. ANF01. The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus
- Some lavish gold out of the bag to make an idol of it in the house, while others hoard up gold in the bag to make an idol of it in the heart; for covetousness is idolatry, as dangerous, though not as scandalous, as the other. Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume IV (Isaiah to Malachi)
- Caroline could have been more fatal to her favour with her uncle. — “Covetousness,” would he say, “if it want the activity of vice, is the smotherer of every virtue. Things By Their Right Names
- Covetousness is the mother of ruin and mischief.