greedy
Americanadjective
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excessively or inordinately desirous of wealth, profit, etc..
The greedy owners of the company paid their employees too little and charged their customers too much.
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having an excessive desire for food or drink.
That greedy guy ate four of those brownies before anyone else got any!
- Synonyms:
- insatiable, gluttonous, voracious, ravenous
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keenly desirous; eager (often followed by of orfor ).
greedy for praise.
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requiring or using much of a specified thing (often used in combination).
These big trucks are fuel-greedy.
Crops that are greedy for water should not be planted in dry regions.
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Computers.
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of or relating to an algorithm, search, etc., that operates one step at a time instead of checking all possible paths or solutions all at once and then selecting the one with the best overall outcome.
A result may be achieved faster with a greedy search, but that result is not always the correct or best one.
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of or relating to an operator or quantifier in a search query that will return the largest match result possible.
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adjective
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excessively desirous of food or wealth, esp in large amounts; voracious
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eager (for)
a man greedy for success
Usage
What does greedy mean? Greedy means filled with greed—an excessive desire for more, especially for more money and possessions. It can be used to describe people, as in greedy billionaires, or actions that are based on greed, as in It was a greedy scheme to squeeze more money out of people. Greed and greedy are always used negatively to criticize the excessive desire for more. Greed is often thought to influence people to do bad things in their obsession to acquire more money or more stuff. In the expression “the love of money is the root of all evil,” the love of money is another way of saying being greedy. Less commonly, greedy can mean the same thing as gluttonous—having an excessive desire for food. Example: These greedy hedge fund managers have more money than they can spend in a lifetime, yet they insist on trying to get away with paying the least amount of taxes possible.
Synonym Usage
See avaricious, greed.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of greedy
First recorded before 900; Middle English gredy, Old English grædig; cognate with Old Norse grāthugr, Gothic gredags
Explanation
Being greedy means you want more and more of something, especially money. But you can be greedy for just about anything, including food, drink, or fame. People who are greedy are a little too interested in having something. Usually, that something is money. Rich people who keep trying to get more and more money are often accused by being greedy. A gluttonous person is greedy for food. If you're obsessed with something and can't get enough of it, you're greedy for it. This is a word for extreme, grasping, devouring behavior.
Vocabulary lists containing greedy
Beowulf vocabulary
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We're Excited! Synonyms for "Eager"
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"Terrible Things"
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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.
Greedy widows and bullying uncles are distracting you from the bigger picture, the ability to plan a life that you have always wanted.
From MarketWatch • Oct. 9, 2025
David Prosser, from Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, is not only a superfan, but he had a tribute act The Greedy Souls in the band's honour.
From BBC • Jul. 3, 2025
"Until recently Swedes were bidding up the price of homes with funny money," said Andreas Cervenka, author of "Greedy Sweden", a book examining inequality driven partly by the housing boom.
From Reuters • Sep. 15, 2023
But under his previous name Greedy Giddy, he’d spent most of the decade building a grassroots buzz in Watts, Compton and Gardena.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 28, 2023
Greedy fingers went through his clothes, frantic figures searched him, and the pearl, knocked from his hand, lay winking behind a little stone in the pathway.
From "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck
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.
