Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth: "Many . . . attach to competition the stigma of selfish greed” ( Henry Fawcett).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An excessively eager desire to possess something, especially wealth; avaricious desire; especially, coarse and brutal avarice.
- n. A greedy person.
- n. Synonyms Greediness, Greed; eagerness, avidity. Greediness is used either literally or figuratively, as greediness for food, greediness for favors, applause, knowledge; greed has now lost its literal sense, and is rarely used except for avarice and in such phrases as greed of gain, greed of wealth, greed of gold.
- To cry; cry out; call.
- n. A pondweed (Potamogeton in several species): usually in plural.
- n. plural Straw used to make manure in a farm-yard.
Wiktionary
- n. A selfish or excessive desire for more than is needed or deserved, especially of money, wealth, food, or other possessions.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An eager desire or longing; greediness.
WordNet 3.0
- n. excessive desire to acquire or possess more (especially more material wealth) than one needs or deserves
- n. reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins)
Etymologies
- Back-formation from greedy. (Wiktionary)
- Back-formation from greedy. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Climate change in the same breath as greed and consumption, sounds like our man (as was) at the IPCC, Houghton, who believed that emissions reductions would save the planet from mankind's 'greed and indifference '.”
On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...
“Lord Myners attacks bankers 'greed and finds God minister appointed to clean up the City, is so disenchanted by bankers' greed and self-aggrandisement that he is planning to become a theology student.”
“(hey, even 20 percent would be great!) to the innovation platform put forward at Vijay Vaitheeswaran: "Need, speed, and greed for good as opposed to 'greed is good. ”
“The taxpayer will see to it that the corruption on Wall Street, the gambling mentality, and the plain greed is dealt with.”
Vote on Wall Street reform debate may come Wednesday evening
“Last month, newspapers ran 2285 stories with the word "greed.”
The Huffington Post: Peter Dreier: Occupy Wall Street: Changing the Topic
“Number of articles with the word 'greed' in U.S. newspapers - October 2010 through October 2011”
The Huffington Post: Peter Dreier: Occupy Wall Street: Changing the Topic
“What fuels our greed is a neurotransmitter called dopamine.”
The Huffington Post: Tony Schwartz: Dope, Dopes and Dopamine: The Problem With Money
“But their greed is the reason segments of the population want to see them cash their chips in early.”
President Obama's New Afghanistan War Strategy with 30,000 Troop Increase
“A Gingrich-allied Super PAC released a trailer for a film titled "When Mitt Romney Came to Town" that deploys all the manipulative techniques familiar to the genre: tearful laid-off employees, grainy images of shuttered factories, narration that works in the word "greed" as often as possible.”
“The president chose this town of 4,600 in eastern Kansas as a historical echo of a speech given more than a century earlier by Theodore Roosevelt, who used the same location to call for a strong central government that would protect ordinary Americans from what he called the greed and recklessness of big business and special interests.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘greed’.
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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®emovies
Movies or TV shows where the titles are also common words, generally one-word titles.
lost, alien, bug, elephant, siege, gladiator, flock, captivity, piano, roots, freaks, moonstruck and 269 more...
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WF - list of EN back-formations
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_back-formations
aborigine, accrete, acculturate, admix, admixture, adolesce, adsorb, adulate, advect, aesthete, air-condition, anticline and 212 more...
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Headlines & Newsmakers
frugality, environment, extinction, bible, killer, jazz, cloning, dead, god, moon, global warming, bailout and 340 more...
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Public List: Two by Fives
This is an experiment in public lists--something I've been thinking about for some time. The goal is to create a collection of short, powerful, evocative words.
This is an open list. A...icy, howl, hymn, thorn, fire, vile, mist, blunt, scum, dark, shot, gleam and 221 more...
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RELI - words with Biblical connotations
Words in the Bible evoking biblical stories or with special spiritual meaning. Proper names have been reduced to the minimum.
ark, judgement, holy, saint, baptism, spirit, love, eternal, altar, balsam, covenant, flood and 1115 more...
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Vices
Don't drink. Don't smoke. What do you do?
alcohol, tobacco, chocolate, anger, coffee, dancing, playing cards, gambling, blasphemy, pride, intoxicants, superbia and 16 more...
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Words That Can Be Typed Entirely With...
Words made of the following: qwertasdfgzxcvb. I've stood on the shoulders of giants... users mollusque and reesetee made similar lists before I even existed on Wordnik. :)
stewardesses, red tea, waves, axes, wrest, qat, waver, created, dressed, stress, crater, vexes and 50 more...
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Wild Ees
For words containing at least two instances of the letter E.
cerebration, concupiscence, flatulence, breed, screed, tweed, bleed, feed, steed, speed, deed, weed and 9 more...
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Riot Act
In August 2011 there were significant riots in London, Manchester, Liverpool and other cities in England. This is a list of the immediate and root causes of the riots as proferred by social comment...
fatal shooting by..., social divide, criminality pure ..., poor parenting, racial tension, greed, social media, gangs, opportunistic thu..., pernicious cultur..., consumerism, loathing of autho... and 21 more...
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Baby Got Back-Formations
"A new word created by removing an affix from an already existing word, as vacuum clean from vacuum cleaner, or by removing what is mistakenly thought to be an affix, as pea from the earlier Englis...
resurrect, enthuse, couth, donate, emote, greed, isolate, manipulate, orate, prequel, spectate, upholster and 94 more...
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zzyyxx's Words
plethora, drout, functional, rye, wring, doubt, cognative, weird, gnaw, surcease, rend, languish and 438 more...
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Chainlink's Words
hat, opalescent, opal, emerald, sapphire, scythe, carnival, calliope, brilliant, awesome, feather, fantastic and 268 more...
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curligirli0's Words
crapulous, swish, shiatsu, zen, xenoglossy, nincompoop, loquacious, pianissimo, onomatopoeia, imperturbable, silky, hosanas and 379 more...
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English
rewarding, wit, landmark, core, soar, drop, plunge, plummet, dive, level off, rocket, peak and 110 more...
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Scriptie: The Fellowship of the Ring
the world is changed, much that once wa..., great rings, immortal, dwarf lords, miners, craftsmen, three, seven, nine, deceived, dark lord and 216 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for greed.
sonofgroucho I was going to put in a reference to the Greed Is Good speech from Wall Street, but it seems Gordon Gekko didn't actually say "Greed is Good." Dec 24, 2006