avarice
[av-er-is]
- insatiable greed for riches; inordinate, miserly desire to gain and hoard wealth.
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Origin of avarice
Synonyms
See more synonyms for avarice on Thesaurus.comcupidity.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for avarice
Contemporary Examples
There was a whole thought in the 1980s, that Wall Street greed thing and this sense of avarice was in the air.
Al Pacino Does What He Wants to Do: 'The Humbling,' Scorsese, and That 'Scarface' RemakeAlex Suskind
September 9, 2014
TopsyBy Michael Daly A tragic tale of a circus elephant who fell victim to human competition and avarice.
Avarice will likely bring a politician down, unless the pol can be portrayed as a champion of the little guy or a cause.
It was the age of unbridled excess, avarice, and machismo gone haywire.
I am writing it,” she tells us, “and I spill it all out on my lap like very money, like riches, beyond the dreams of avarice.
Historical Examples
There is no limit to the moral baseness of the man of avarice.
The offspring of pride, and lust, and avarice, it is indigenous to the world.
The Works of Whittier, Volume VII (of VII)John Greenleaf Whittier
He is incapable of envy or avarice, whether from virtue or from carelessness.
ReflectionsFrancois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
The old jests about her avarice were repeated over and over again.
Doctor PascalEmile Zola
Of course you know that ambition and avarice are held to be, as indeed they are, a disgrace?
The RepublicPlato
avarice
- extreme greed for riches; cupidity
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Word Origin
C13: from Old French, from Latin avaritia, from avārus covetous, from avēre to crave
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for avarice
n.
c.1300, from Old French avarice "greed, covetousness" (12c.), from Latin avaritia "greed," from avarus "greedy," adjectival form of avere "crave, long for."
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper