AVARICE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does avarice mean? 

• AVARICE (noun)
  The noun AVARICE has 2 senses:

1. reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins)

2. extreme greed for material wealth

  Familiarity information: AVARICE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AVARICE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

avarice; avaritia; covetousness; greed; rapacity

Hypernyms ("avarice" is a kind of...):

deadly sin; mortal sin (an unpardonable sin entailing a total loss of grace)

Derivation:

avaricious (immoderately desirous of acquiring e.g. wealth)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Extreme greed for material wealth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

avarice; avariciousness; covetousness; cupidity

Hypernyms ("avarice" is a kind of...):

greed (excessive desire to acquire or possess more (especially more material wealth) than one needs or deserves)

Derivation:

avaricious (immoderately desirous of acquiring e.g. wealth)

 Context examples 

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?

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Where does discretion end, and avarice begin?

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Well may it be doubted; for, had I really loved, could I have sacrificed my feelings to vanity, to avarice? —or, what is more, could I have sacrificed hers?

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Ah! replied the horse, justice and avarice never dwell in one house; my master has forgotten all that I have done for him so many years, and because I can no longer work he has turned me adrift, and says unless I become stronger than a lion he will not take me back again; what chance can I have of that? he knows I have none, or he would not talk so.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

A most remarkable circumstance is, that I really don't think he grasped this sum even so much for the gratification of his avarice, which was inordinate, as in the hatred he felt for Copperfield.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was a fine arrangement for Henry Crawford, who was close to Fanny, and with his hands full of business, having two persons' cards to manage as well as his own; for though it was impossible for Fanny not to feel herself mistress of the rules of the game in three minutes, he had yet to inspirit her play, sharpen her avarice, and harden her heart, which, especially in any competition with William, was a work of some difficulty; and as for Lady Bertram, he must continue in charge of all her fame and fortune through the whole evening; and if quick enough to keep her from looking at her cards when the deal began, must direct her in whatever was to be done with them to the end of it.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Thorpe, most happy to be on speaking terms with a man of General Tilney's importance, had been joyfully and proudly communicative; and being at that time not only in daily expectation of Morland's engaging Isabella, but likewise pretty well resolved upon marrying Catherine himself, his vanity induced him to represent the family as yet more wealthy than his vanity and avarice had made him believe them.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

It is not only that he feels sorrow, deep sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his life, and now at the end has treated him like his own son and left him a fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on another account.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Having long had as much money as he could spend, nothing to wish for on the side of avarice or indulgence, he has been gradually learning to pin his happiness upon the consequence he is heir to.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)