Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Avarice |
AvariceNoun1. Reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins). 2. Extreme greed for material wealth. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "avarice" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1258. (references) |
Synonyms: AvariceSynonyms: avariciousness (n), avaritia (n), covetousness (n), cupidity (n), greed (n), rapacity (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Gluttony | Noun: gluttony; greed, avarice; greediness; Adjective: voracity. |
Greed | Greed, greediness, avarice, avidity, rapacity, extortion. |
Parsimony | Avarice, greed; a. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Avarice |
| English words defined with "avarice": Covetise ♦ mammon ♦ To find fault. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "avarice": Agis ♦ Dolorous Dettie ♦ Gyneth ♦ Lucifera ♦ Seven Deadly Sins. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "avarice": Autumn. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Avarice" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. French (avarice, cheeseparing, meanness, miserliness, niggardliness, stinginess). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | We plunged into the cornucopia quivering with desire and the ecstasy of unbridled avarice. (A Christmas Story; writing credit: Leigh Brown; Bob Clark) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Beyond the Dreams of Avarice (1920) Avarice (1917) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Anna Jameson | Avarice is to the intellect and heart, what sensuality is to the morals. |
Charles Caleb Colton | Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance. |
Cowley | Poverty wants some things, luxury many, avarice all things. |
David Hume | Avarice, the spur of industry. |
George Bancroft | Avarice is the vice of declining years. |
Johnson | Avarice is always poor, but poor by its own fault. |
Juvenal | Avarice increases with the increasing pile of gold. |
Lord Byron | So for a good old-gentlemanly vice, I think I must take up with avarice. |
Thomas Middleton | That disease of which all old men sicken -- avarice. |
William Penn | To hazard much to get much has more of avarice than wisdom. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Gulliver's Travels | Swift, Jonathan | Whether they were always so free from avarice, partialities, or want, that a bribe, or some other sinister view, could have no place among them |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Avarice" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 84.21% of the time. "Avarice" is used about 38 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 84.21% | 32 | 61,292 |
| Noun (proper) | 13.16% | 5 | 157,705 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 2.63% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 38 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
avarice | 27 |
avarice greed | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "avarice"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | koprraci (cheese paring, closeness, meanness, miserliness, money-grubbing, parsimony, rapacity, stinginess), dorështrëngim. (various references) | |
Arabic | حب إختزان المال, جشع (an itching palm, avaricious, avidity, cupidity, grasping, greed, greedy, mercenary, predatory, rapacious, rapacity, ravening), بخل (littleness, meanness, miserliness, scant, scrimp, skimp, spare, stinginess, stint). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | скъперничество (miserliness, stinginess), силно желание (ambition, anxiety, appetence, appetency, impatience, itch, lust, oestrum, oestrus, yearning), алчност (avidity, cupidity, eagerness, mammon, miserliness, rapacity). (various references) | |
Chinese | 贪婪 (Acquisitive, Acquisitiveness, Covetous, grabby, greed, greedy, rapacious). (various references) | |
Czech | lakota (greed, meanness, miserliness, nearness), lakomství (parsimony). (various references) | |
Dutch | vrekkigheid (miserliness, stinginess), schraperigheid (miserliness, stinginess), inhaligheid (miserliness, stinginess), gierigheid (miserliness, stinginess). (various references) | |
Esperanto | avareco (miserliness, stinginess). (various references) | |
Farsi | حرص (Avidity, Greed), زیاده جوءی , طمع (Avidity, Greed), از (Avidity, By, Greed, In, Of, Rapacity, Soften). (various references) | |
Finnish | ahneus (avidity, greed, voracity). (various references) | |
French | avarice. (various references) | |
Frisian | gjirrigens (miserliness, stinginess), deunens (miserliness, stinginess). (various references) | |
German | habsucht (avidity, covetousness, eagerness, greed, greediness), habgier (acquisitiveness, cupidities, cupidity, greed), Geiz (avarices, costiveness, meanness, miserliness, parsimony, penuriousness, stinginess, tightness). (various references) | |
Greek | φιλαργυρία (parsimony, penuriousness, sordidness, stinginess). (various references) | |
Hebrew | תאות "ממון, תאות בצע (greed, lucre), חמ" ות (covetousness, greed, greediness, lustfulness), א"בת בצע (greed, venality), כילות (greed, miserliness), בצע (covetousness, gain, greed, lucre, profit), ציק ות (miserliness, stinginess), צרות עין (envy, jealousy). (various references) | |
Hungarian | kapzsiság (avidity, covetousness, greed, greediness, rapacity), fösvénység (miserliness, nearness, parsimony), fukarság (meanness, miserliness, skimpiness). (various references) | |
Indonesian | tamak (acquisitive, grasping, greedy, rapacious), kikir (avaricious, closefisted, file, skinny), keserakahan, kekikiran. (various references) | |
Italian | avarizia, cupidigia (cupidity, greed). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 胴慾 (greed, heartlessness), 胴欲 (greed, heartlessness), 貪慾 (covetousness, greed), 貪欲 (covetousness, greed), 慾 (craving, desire, greed), 欲深 (covetousness, greed), 欲張り (covetousness, greed), 強慾 (greed), 強欲 (greed), 大欲 , 利欲 (greed). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | たいよく, どうよく (greed, heartlessness), ど"よく (covetousness, greed), "うよく (greed), りよく (greed), よくぶか (covetousness, greed), よくふか (covetousness, greed), よくばり (covetousness, greed), よく (bath, being skilled in, craving, desire, greed, nicely, properly, skilled in, skillfully, thoroughly, wants, well). (various references) | |
Korean | 탐욕. (various references) | |
Manx | sondid (close-fistedness, closeness, covetousness, selfishness, sordidness), saynt (covetousness, lust, thirst for knowledge). (various references) | |
Norwegian | griskhet, gjerrighet. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | avariceay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | avareza (avidity, cheeseparing, cupidity, miserliness, parsimony, piggery, pigpen). (various references) | |
Romanian | avariţie (miserabliness, stinginess), zgârcenie (cheese paring, closeness, costiveness, covetousness, miserabliness, parsimony, skimp, stinginess), scumpete (costliness, dearness, expensiveness, love). (various references) | |
Russian | жадность (avidity, covetousness, cupidity, edacity, greed, greediness, insatiability, piggishness, rapacity), алчность (avidity, cupidity, greed). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | pohlepa (greed, greediness, lust), škrtost (miserliness, parsimony, penurity, scantiness, stinginess). (various references) | |
Spanish | avaricia (an itching palm, cupidity, miserliness, parsimony), codicia (cupidity, greed, greediness, lust). (various references) | |
Swedish | girighet (avariciousness, avidity, cupidity, greed, miserliness, rapacity). (various references) | |
Thai | ความโล (rapaciousness, rapacity). (various references) | |
Turkish | açgözlülük (avidity, covetousness, cupidity, gluttony, greed, greediness, insatiability, rapaciousness, rapacity, voracity), para hırsı (acquisitiveness, itching palm). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | корисливість (cupidity, money-grubbing, self interest), зажерливість (covetousness), жадібність (avidity, bulimy, covetousness, cupidity, edacity, greediness, rapacity), жадоба (appetite, avidity, craving, cupidity, desire, greed, yearn, yearning). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | tính tham lam (avariciousness, cupidity, graspingness), tính hám lợi (avariciousness, mercantilism). (various references) | |
Welsh | arian.garwch (love of money), trachwant (covetousness, greed, lust), cybydd-dod (miserliness). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | avaritia. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "avarice": avarices. (additional references) | |
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"Avarice" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: abarice, Agariste, Ajaiki, alarice, Amarige, anvar-i, aparice, aparine, aravice, avaline, avarace, avariace, avarie, Avaris, averace, averice, Averie, averise, aviarce, aviatical, avorice, avrice, Bacarisse, evaire, Icaricia, navarese, savaric, varice. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "avarice" (pronounced a"verus) |
| 4 | -v er u s | carnivorous, herbivorous, insectivorous, omnivorous. |
| 3 | -er u s | adulterous, adventurous, amorous, barbarous, boisterous, cancerous, cantankerous, carboniferous, coniferous, dangerous, decorous, fossiliferous, generous, glamorous, heterosporous, homosporous, humerus, humorous, lecherous, murderous, numerous, odorous, onerous, overgenerous, oviparous, ovoviviparous, phosphorous, phosphorus, ponderous, precancerous, preposterous, prosperous, rancorous, rapturous, rhinoceros, rigorous, slanderous, sonorous, tetramerous, thunderous, timorous, traitorous, treacherous, unglamorous, uterus, vigorous, viviparous, vociferous. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: caviare. | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-c-e-i-r-v" | |
-1 letter: caviar. | |
-2 letters: acari, aecia, aiver, areca, areic, carve, caver, cavie, ceria, crave, erica, varia, vicar. | |
-3 letters: acre, area, aria, aver, care, cave, cire, race, raia, rave, rice, rive, vair, vara, vera, vice, vier. | |
-4 letters: ace, air, arc, are, ava, ave, car, ear, era, ice, ire, rec, rei, rev, ria, vac, var, via, vie. | |
-5 letters: aa. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-c-e-i-r-v" | |
+1 letter: avarices, cavalier, caviares, variance, vicarage, vicarate. | |
+2 letters: cadaveric, calvaries, cavaliers, cavalries, variances, varicella, vicarages, vicarates, vicariate. | |
+3 letters: architrave, attractive, aviatrices, cadaverine, cavaliered, cavalierly, covariance, divaricate, invariance, lacerative, reactivate, vacationer, vagrancies, varicellas, vicariance, vicariates. | |
+4 letters: abstractive, acriflavine, affricative, architraves, cadaverines, carminative, cavaliering, cavalierism, comparative, covariances, deactivator, declarative, divaricated, divaricates, invariances, prevaricate, radioactive, reactivated, reactivates, revaccinate, vacationers, vicariances. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Quotations: Familiar 7. Quotations: Fiction 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Translations: Ancient 12. Derivations | 13. Rhymes 14. Anagrams 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
