covet
Americanverb (used with object)
-
covets,
present (3rd person singular)
-
coveted,
past participle, past
-
coveting
present participle
-
to desire wrongfully, inordinately, or without due regard for the rights of others.
to covet another's property.
- Antonyms:
- renounce
-
to wish for, especially eagerly.
He won the prize they all coveted.
verb (used without object)
-
covets,
present (3rd person singular)
-
coveted,
past participle, past
-
coveting
present participle
verb
Synonym Usage
See envy.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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covetsimple
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covetssimple
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have covetedperfect
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has covetedperfect
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am covetingprogressive
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are covetingprogressive
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is covetingprogressive
-
have been covetingperfect progressive
-
has been covetingperfect progressive
Past
-
covetedsimple
-
had covetedperfect
-
was covetingprogressive
-
were covetingprogressive
-
had been covetingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of covet
First recorded in 1325–1350; Middle English coveiten, from Anglo-French coveiter, Old French coveit(i)er, from unattested Vulgar Latin cupiditāre, verbal derivative of Latin cupiditās cupidity
Explanation
If you covet something, you eagerly desire something that someone else has. If it's 95 degrees out and humid, you may find yourself coveting your neighbor's air conditioner. If the word covet sounds familiar, you're thinking of the Tenth Commandment: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's." Basically this means you should be happy with your electronic gadgets and not be jealous when a friend gets something better.
Vocabulary lists containing covet
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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The Crucible
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Material World: Shopping Lingo
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Tourists pack inside these temples of fashion to gaze at rows of sleek sneakers or show staff the pair they covet on their smartphones.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026
All this puts it at the heart of Chinese and US economic interests and they actively covet it.
From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026
United also covet England's Elliot Anderson, although the Nottingham Forest player would prefer to join Manchester City.
From BBC ● Jun. 2, 2026
For months, they’ve been signaling as if with a searchlight how much they covet the 6-foot-11 Greek forward.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
Beijing will likely have decided to play the role of peacemaker because the war in Iran jeopardises something Xi covets: stability.
From BBC ● Apr. 1, 2026
Or, according to an erratic transactional logic in which force would no longer serve freedom but replace it, an allied nation: Denmark, whose Greenland he covets?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 7, 2026
Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government covets Chinese investment to spur a struggling economy and is pondering a request from Beijing to build a controversial new embassy building in London.
From Barron's ● Oct. 13, 2025
Even worse, the vampire covets the solicitor’s wife, and he’ll be moving into the old manse across the street from the couple.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2024
She sighs like I'm bothering her and it's an imposition for her to tell me, but I know she covets the attention.
From "The Belles" by Dhonielle Clayton
One of Ramabai's daughters is preparing for police recruitment and the other for the civil services - two fiercely competitive routes into the security and social status associated with a coveted and secure government job.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
Video: See how a 69-year-old Japanese biker built Iron Heart into a coveted denim brand, with $500 jeans that fans can’t get enough of.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
This is a plan-in-advance activity, because getting a coveted table at the luxe restaurant — which is small relative to the size of the museum — requires a reservation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
And its Los Angeles location should prove particularly convenient as Frech swaps the track for the ballroom and competes for the coveted Mirrorball Trophy along side his pro partner, Daniella Karagach.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 8, 2026
Imagine that 30,000 years ago one tribe defeated its neighbour and expelled it from coveted foraging grounds.
From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
But it remains a relevant morality tale — of the rot that comes with coveting all of L.A.’s beautiful things and the pitfalls of parenting by giving your children all the material things you lacked.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
But Fernandes is not one for coveting individual awards.
From BBC ● May 8, 2026
Now he is vying for votes in a military-managed poll starting on Sunday, coveting the former seat of the country's best known political prisoner -- Aung San Suu Kyi.
From Barron's ● Dec. 23, 2025
Then Coop launches into a meticulous description of what makes each item worth coveting.
From Salon ● Apr. 11, 2025
A “horizontal desire,” coveting a neighbor’s goods, has been replaced by a “vertical desire,” coveting the goods of the rich and the powerful seen on television, Schor said.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
