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Covetous   Listen
Covetous

adjective
1.
Showing extreme cupidity; painfully desirous of another's advantages.  Synonyms: envious, jealous.  "Jealous of his success and covetous of his possessions" , "Envious of their art collection"
2.
Immoderately desirous of acquiring e.g. wealth.  Synonyms: avaricious, grabby, grasping, greedy, prehensile.  "Casting covetous eyes on his neighbor's fields" , "A grasping old miser" , "Grasping commercialism" , "Greedy for money and power" , "Grew richer and greedier" , "Prehensile employers stingy with raises for their employees"



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"Covetous" Quotes from Famous Books



... she slept in the little tent, and Stane, wrapped in a blanket, slumbered on a bed of spruce-boughs, perhaps half-a-dozen yards away, a man crept cautiously between the trees in the rear of the encampment, and stood looking at it with covetous eyes. He was a half-breed of evil countenance, and he carried an old trade gun, which he held ready for action whilst he surveyed the silent camp. His dark eyes fell on Stane sleeping in the open, and then looked towards the tent with a question in them. Evidently he was ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... that the youth was one whom ordinary people would call a lover of money; I do not believe he was covetous, or desired even the large increase of his possessions; I imagine he was just like most good men of property: he valued his possessions—looked on them as a good. I suspect that in the case of another, he would ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... In a moment the deep stillness of the forest was broken by the pattering of many little feet; from the thickets the hogs came; each hurrying with might and main to be foremost, they rushed, grunting, squealing, crowding to the fence, where, standing with upturned faces and small covetous eyes, they awaited the feast of golden grain which the old man hastened to scatter amongst them. Then, leaning upon the fence, he noted each greedy grunter as he wriggled his small tail in keenest enjoyment and cracked ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... the plague brought out the good in a man, sometimes changed his life from one of covetous indifference or grasping selfishness into a life of earnestness and devout philanthropy, it happened at other times—and I fear it must be confessed more frequently—that coarse natures, hard and cruel ones, were made ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... mistaken. The King of Prussia, who is so covetous of that which belongs to others, will gladly share ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... it; then, after one or two futile attempts, he succeeded in focusing the rays of the sun upon his naked arm, giving a little yelp as he felt the sting of the heat. Finally, with a laugh, he handed the lens back to Cunningham; but there was a covetous look in his eyes as he did so which caused me to utter a word of warning to the engineer lest he should awake some fine morning and discover that ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... was a covetous undertaker in town, who carted away the corpse, and then told the widow that she must spend much money on the funeral, in order to have her husband buried properly; or else, the tongues of the neighbors would wag. So the poor ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis

... unhappy over his wife's death, and La Roulante had consoled him. When once in possession of Gudel's name, this woman frankly threw aside the mask and displayed her real qualities and disposition. She was covetous and intemperate, presenting, in fact, an extraordinary specimen of human depravity. She hated Caillette for her youth and her beauty; she hated Fanfar for his goodness, and hated Gudel for his patience and for his ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett

... work had done, or those who would be so very devout that they would neither speak to them authoritatively nor admonish them with kindness to any effect. The Lord has caused us to see this example that we might know that these people are still covetous, and that almost all of them are attached to the world and to themselves—that is, they are worldly people, which shows the holiness of the spirit by which they are actuated! As regards Anna Salters, it was said she was mundane, carnal, covetous, and artful, although she appeared to be the most ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... slipped and snipped her wrapper, she had time to look about her. The rooms wore such a pleasant, home-like air; they were cool and comfortable-looking, and not a fly to be seen. Faith, reared to the finest and best of everything, now looked with almost covetous eyes on this poor, ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

... returns. All these feelings operated with the Greeks to a much greater extent. Investments in consols and railway shares were not open to them. Money they used to lend at usury, no doubt, but with a great chance of losing it. The Greek colonists were industrious, were covetous, and prudent. From this it had come to pass that, as they made their way about the world—to the cities which they established round the Mediterranean—they collected in their new homes great store of ornamental wealth. This was done with much profusion at Syracuse, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... no law, human or divine, challenged his right. The ground was eminently fruitful; the unconscious earth gave forth its riches, making no distinction between one who used it well and one who abused it. On the fields of the covetous man the rain fell and the sun shone: God makes his sun to shine on the evil and on the good. It is not here—it is not now that he judges the world in righteousness. He giveth to all men ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... as neither Pitt, nor Fox, nor even Chatham was capable of reaching. There might be seen in Banks's fine bust of him, the cause why Warren Hastings, though he was endowed with many good qualities which endeared him to his friends, was, nevertheless, covetous, self-willed, domineering, unjust, and, in some instances, pitiless, as Governor-General of India. What a contrast to this did the bust of the Marquis of Wellesley, by Nollekens, present. Not only did it indicate that ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various

... has no money is poor, but one who has nothing but money is poorer. He only is rich who can enjoy without owning; he is poor who though he have millions is covetous. There are riches of intellect, and no man with an intellectual taste can be called poor. He is rich as well as brave who can face compulsory poverty and misfortune with cheerfulness ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... on. The order of procedure was pretty much what it had always been: a promise that the remaining land should be the Indian's, undisturbed by white men and protected by government guarantee, forever; encroachment by enterprising, covetous, and lawless whites; conflict between the two races, the outraged and the aggressive; the advent of the schemer, the man with political capital and undeveloped or perverted sense of honor, whose vision was such that he saw the Indian owner as ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... devoted his early years to the indefatigable pursuit of gain. He was frugal and abstemious, though not covetous, and amassed a large property. This property he intended to divide between his two children, and to secure my portion to his nephew, whom his parents had left an orphan in his infancy, and whom my father had taken and treated as his own child by marrying ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... was I," said the other, taking the words out of her mouth, "the wife of Capitan Tinong is so stingy—she hasn't yet sent us any present and that after we've been in her house. So, when such a grasping and covetous woman lets go of a little present ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... person's authority; and, on hearing that the result of all the disorders and revolutions had been the elevation of Bibars Bendocdar to the throne of Saladin, he remarked, in homely oriental phrase, 'when the pot boils, the scum rises to the top.' Above all, Musteazem was a miser, and covetous to the last degree; and when it was explained to him by his grand vizier, whom the Templar had already bribed with a purse of gold, that the King of France was liberal in money matters, and was ready to pay handsomely for the ransom of ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar

... had not scrupled to rifle the Deerhurst vineyards of their most attractive vines, and the cluster of fruit on which Mabel had fixed a covetous eye was certainly a tempting one. The rays from two Chinese lanterns, hung near it, brought out its juicy lusciousness with even more than daylight clearness, and Mabel's mouth fairly watered for these ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... found her, and as soon as she saw me she said in deep distress: 'Cardenio, I am attired in wedding garments, and in the hall there waits for me the traitor, Don Fernando, and my covetous father, with other witnesses, who shall see my death rather than my wedding. Be not troubled, dear friend, for if I cannot persuade them to give me my freedom, I can at least end my life with ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... lawyers, but they understand the familiar saying, that "possession is nine points of the law." That the horse was a valuable one they understood; and they had no intention of parting with him. Still more, they looked with covetous eyes at the horses ridden by Scott and the boy, and they had already made up their minds to ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger

... without passion; art jealous, without anxiety; repentest, yet grievest not; art angry, yet serene; changest Thy works, Thy purpose unchanged; receivest again what Thou findest, yet didst never lose; never in need, yet rejoicing in gains; never covetous, yet exacting usury. Thou receivest over and above, that Thou mayest owe; and who hath aught that is not Thine? Thou payest debts, owing nothing; remittest debts, losing nothing. And what had I now said, my God, my life, my holy joy? or what saith any man when he speaks of Thee? Yet woe to him that ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... with covetous stare, Gazed on a vision surpassingly fair: Far on the desert's remote extreme A mountain of gold with a mellow gleam Reared its high pinnacles into the sky, The work of mirage to delude the eye. Pixley Pasha, at the ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... 'at I'm goin' to tell you about was called the Creole Belle," he sez. "For a longtime it didn't pay to amount to anything, an' then it began to pay; an' the two friends got covetous, an' first George had Jack killed an' then he ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... nothing, hath given them in one year life and all members, so exquisitely hath created and will maintain and preserve them. Yet, notwithstanding, we do not much regard it; nay, we are in such gifts of God blind and covetous, as commonly it falleth out that people when they have got children grow worse and more covetous; they rake and rend all they can, to the end enough may be left for their children. They do not know that before a child comes to the ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... coin, corn, or other valuables, and lays his damages at so much. The defendant, if inclined to contest the claim, pays into court the disputed amount, and the question is settled after the traditional and immemorial customs of the tribe. This man, covetous as any other disciple of Justinian, was exceedingly anxious to obtain the honorarium of a Shaykh, and he worked hard to deserve it. Shortly before our departure from Sharma, he brought in some scoriae and slag, broken ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... kid, the cruel goad of godless Midianite, driving him on and on through burning sands and 'neath a blazing sun, far from his tearful mother and mourning sire. How cruel the fates to consign to slavery one born to be a king! His master is a hard man and covetous, but her pleadings shall yet purchase sweet liberty for old Jacob's son, that he may fulfill the high dreams of which he has told her—may answer the midnight messages of Israel's God and triumph over those wicked brethren. Perhaps—who ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... bracelets in the hands of the queen, Maria Theresa, who, knowing too well, poor woman, that they were not designed for her, hardly looked at them, and almost immediately passed them on to Madame. The latter, and even more minutely, Monsieur, gave the bracelets a long look of anxious and almost covetous desire. She then handed the jewels to those ladies who were near her, pronouncing this single word, but with an accent which was worth ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Consideration of this, as the Season being so far advanced, which now induces me to lay down my Pen. My Thoughts and Desires, I must own, are turn'd to Solitude and rural Pleasures. The Man, who desires to have his Body in Health, should rise from Table with some Remains of Appetite, and not be covetous of gorging to Satiety: So a Writer, who would not wish to surfeit the Town, should submit to give over Writing, before they begin to think he has harass'd ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe

... you hear the moan Oenone makes, her Paris being gone; And Menelaus, for the woe he had To lose his wife. Hermione is sad, And calls her dear Orestes to her aid. And Laodamia, that hapless maid, Bewails Protesilaus. Argia proved To Polynice more faithful than the loved (But false and covetous) Amphiaraus' wife. The groans and sighs of those who lose their life By this kind lord, in unrelenting flames You hear: I cannot tell you half their names. For they appear not only men that love, The gods themselves do fill this ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... now to be called "ignorant!" Just as though I could not reason, that is, draw inferences from premises, make deductions from facts. There is the great fact of slavery; it is "the sum of all villanies;" men holding their fellow-men in bondage for the sake of gain; the heart naturally covetous, oppressive, and cruel, where power is unlimited. As though the law of kindness could, in such circumstances, possibly prevail and mitigate the sorrows of the bondman! The direct influence of slavery is to ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... refrained from selling to the Indians such things as might harm them. They were like children, and would have given in exchange for worthless beads and trinkets the most expensive and valuable furs. In this way, Mr. Bradley could have made much money, but his heart was not covetous, and he tried his best to teach the Indians what articles were ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller

... developed into girlhood, her aunt grew more and more covetous of her. Following a secret plan, she adopted a boy from the poorhouse, and brought him up with every advantage that money could buy. My mother, on her visits, was thrown a great deal into this boy's society, but she liked ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... Club" in Boston I sat at dinner by an English lord,—whose name I have forgotten,—from whom I tried to learn what laws Parliament had passed for the repairs of old religious Foundations, that could make them the victims of covetous Architects. But he assured me there were none such, and that he himself was President of a Society in his own County for the protection of such buildings. So that I am left entirely in the dark in regard to the ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... aristocratic one, such manners can exist in the higher ranks, without inducing a total depravity of general thought, and perversion of the power of mind. Talent, often the most venal of venal things, follows in the wake of corruption. Covetous of gain, thirsting for patronage, it fans, instead of lowering, the passions by which all hope to profit. Whenever prevailing vices have set in upon a nation, be they such as spring from a monarchical, an aristocratic, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... care the thriving arts, Watch every beam philosophy imparts: To give religion her unbridled scope, Nor judge by statute a believer's hope; With close fidelity and love unfeign'd, To keep the matrimonial bond unstain'd; Covetous only of a virtuous praise, His life a lesson to the land he sways. Blest country where these kingly glories shine! Blest England, if this ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... apparelled and made ready to sail, are not worth one thousand pounds, or three thousand ducats at the least, if they should presently be sold. What shall we then think of the navy royal, of which some one vessel is worth two of the other, as the shipwright has often told me? It is possible that some covetous person, hearing this report, will either not credit at all, or suppose money so employed to be nothing profitable to the queen's coffers; as a good husband said once, when he heard that provisions should be made for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... renowned for centuries?"—Ibid., 113. (Speech of the mayor Mouet, Floreal 21, year II.) "Moral purification (in Strasbourg) has become less difficult through the reduction of fortunes and the salutary terror excited among those covetous men.. . Civilization has encountered mighty obstacles in this great number of well-to-do families who have nourished souvenirs of, and who regret the privileges enjoyed by, these families under the Emperors; they have formed a caste apart from the State carefully preserving the gothic pictures ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... desire not to be poor, desire not to be too rich. He is rich, not that possesses much, but he that covets no more; and he is poor, not that enjoys little, but he that wants too much. The contented mind wants nothing which it hath not; the covetous mind wants, not only what it hath not, but ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston

... Martin's jibes. In '84 his brother of York had been mixed up in a shocking scandal; in '85 the Bishop of Lichfield was accused of simony; Bishop Aylmer was continually under suspicion of avarice, dishonesty, vanity and swearing; and the Bench as a whole was universally reprobated as covetous, stingy ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... 3 From vanity turn off my eyes: Let no corrupt design, Nor covetous desires arise Within this ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts

... know a better one than this of Naaman and the little maid from Samaria. It is full of human nature; that is, it shows that people acted and felt three thousand years ago just as they do now: they were kind and sympathetic, and proud and grateful and covetous and deceitful, just as people are nowadays. And the story has a fine romantic setting; that is, its incidents take hold of our fancy and charm us;—a little girl stolen in war and carried to a foreign country and put into the house of a great general, ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... shadow cast by the embrasure of the casement, Jaime saw a sparkle, the cause of which his covetous eye at once detected. Three bounds, and he stood under the window. Rita passed her arm through the bars, and a jewelled ring dropped into his ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... lesson in fencing to his cousin Sigismund, the son of Madame de la Roche-Jugan; then shut himself up in the library until the evening, which he passed at bezique with the General. Meantime he viewed with the eye of a philosopher the strife of the covetous relatives who hovered around their ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... called Clutch, and the other Kind. Though brothers, no two men could be more unlike in disposition. Clutch thought of nothing but how to make some profit for himself, while Kind would have shared his last morsel with a hungry dog. This covetous mind made Clutch keep all his father's sheep when the old man was dead, because he was the eldest brother, allowing Kind nothing but the place of a servant to help him ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... has something more in it than this, and he who merely reckons it among useful things does not perfectly comprehend it. A man, you say, is grateful because it is to his advantage to be so. If this be the case, then his advantage will be the measure of his gratitude. Virtue will not admit a covetous lover; men must approach her with open purse. The ungrateful man thinks, "I did wish to be grateful, but I fear the expense and danger and insults to which I should expose myself: I will rather consult my own interest." Men cannot be rendered grateful and ungrateful by ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... revenge. Morgan's plan was simple and practicable. De Lussan, Teach, Velsers and the rest would fall in with it gladly. There would be enough rakehelly, degraded specimens of humanity, hungry and thirsty, lustful and covetous, in Port Royal—which was the wickedest and most flourishing city on the American hemisphere at the time—to accompany them and insure success, provided only there would be reward in women and liquor and treasure. He would do it. They would ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... his shrieks and wails of ecstasy, looked at his radiant face that was contorted by greedy joy, and felt that he, thief and rake as he was, cast out from everything in life, would never be so covetous, so base, would never so forget himself. Never would he be like that! And this thought and feeling, filling him with a sense of his own independence and reckless daring, kept him beside Gavrilo on ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... abrupt and short. It deals with part only of the man's error, the rest of which, being an error to which we are all exposed, and which was the root of the part special to him, is dealt with in the parable that follows. Because the man was covetous, he could see in Jesus nothing more than a rabbi who might influence his brother. Our sense of want largely shapes our conception of Christ. Many to-day see in Him mainly a social (and economical) reformer, because our notion of what we and the world need most is something to set ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... dislike that man, because he talks of the kingdom of God, the providence of God, and they are busy—at least, just now—in telling men that there is no providence and no God— at least, no living God. The covetous and worldly will dislike that man, for they believe that the world is governed, not by God, but by money. Politicians will dislike that man, because they think that not God, but they, govern the world, by those very politics and knavish tricks, which we pray God to confound, whenever we sing ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... me civilly—and if you would not call me child." "Why should not I call you child?" "Because—because—I don't know;—but I wish you would stand out of my light, Cecilia, for you are trampling upon all my strawberries." "I have not touched one, you covetous little creature!" "Indeed—indeed, Cecilia, I am not covetous. I have not eaten one of them—they are all for your friend Leonora. See how unjust you are." "Unjust! that's a cant word you learned of my friend Leonora, as you call her, but she is not my friend now." "Not your friend now!" exclaimed ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth

... well-pleased with the success of his policy, alone ate up that flesh. If kings always act in this way, they can be happy. Thus should the timid by exciting their fears, the courageous by the arts of conciliation, the covetous by gift of wealth, and equals and inferiors by exhibition of prowess be brought under thy sway. Besides all this, O king, that I have said, listen now to something ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... protection of men, saying that they are weak, that they fall an easy prey to the seductive wiles of men,[294] disposed to accept the love that is offered them, and devoted to truth. There are others among them that are full of malice, covetous of honours, fierce in disposition, unlovable, and impervious to reason. Women, however, deserve to be honoured. Do ye men show them honour. The righteousness of men depends upon women. All pleasures and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... drachmas, than to wring From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash By any indirection.—I did send To you for gold to pay my legions, Which you denied me: was that done like Cassius? Should I have answered Caius Cassius so? When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, To lock such rascal counters from his friends, Be ready, gods, with an your thunderbolts; Dash him to pieces! Cas. I denied you not. Bru. You did. Cas. I did not: he was but a fool that brought My answer back. Brutus hath rived my heart: A friend should bear his friend's infirmities, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... alas! does not every thing tell me, that in this world money is the greatest blessing; that it is amply sufficient to render me happy? In the country I inhabit, do I not see all my fellow-citizens covetous of riches? but do I not also witness that they are little scrupulous in the means of obtaining wealth? As soon as they are enriched by the means which you censure, are they not cherished, considered, and respected? By what authority, then, do you object to my amassing treasure? what ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... moment at the history of the seizure of Malta. For generations the value of this citadel had been known. All the strong nations of Europe had looked with covetous eyes upon it. But it was a difficult thing to find any pretext for its capture. It was held by the Knights of St. John, the decrepit remnant of an order whose heroism had many times been the shield of Christendom against the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... still The excellent Husband, and joyn Farm to Farm, Suffer no Lordship, that in a clear day Falls in the prospect of your covetous eye To be anothers; forget you are a Grandee; Take use upon use, and cut the throats of Heirs With cozening Mortgages: rack your poor Tenants, Till they look like so many Skeletons For want of Food; and when that Widows curses, The ruines of ancient Families, tears of Orphans ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... proceed in my supererogatories?—There can be no harm in it. It keeps up my attention to accounts; which one day may be of use to me in more material instances. Those who will not keep a strict account, seldom long keep any. I neglect not more useful employments for it. And it teaches me to be covetous of time; the only thing of which we can be allowably covetous; since we live but once in this world; and, when gone, are ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... insignia as if pretending to the Empire of the East also. The rapid progress of the French power alarmed the Pope and the other princes, including Ludovico himself, who was afraid that the king might cast a covetous eye on his own principality. A formidable league was formed against Charles, including, besides the Italian princes, Ferdinand, Maximilian, and Henry VII. of England. It was the first European combination against France. Charles left eleven thousand men under Gilbert de Montpensier, at ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... the cause of the original natives of the soil. Historic justice demands that some one should tell the truth about the Indians, whose chief and almost only fault has been that they occupied lands which the white man wanted. Even now covetous eyes are cast upon the territory reserved for the ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... leather wings, you know; but they were dragons of a sort, for all that, for they carried brutal things in their hands that belched forth smoke and pain and death, and they were cruel of heart, and they had sold themselves to do evil for the sake of the dollars that covetous men and women would pay ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch

... place was a swarming heap of dull base creatures, living as it were on shelves, one above the other, in that low-storied house, built round a narrow, evil-smelling yard. Christophe was disgusted, and wondered what lusts and covetous desires could have drawn so many creatures to this place, far from the fields, where at least there is air enough for all, and what it could profit them in the end to be in the city of Paris, where all their lives they were condemned to live in ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... indeed my heart clove to her with a great love and I left her not night nor day and occupied myself with her to the exclusion of my brothers. Wherefore they were jealous of me and envied me my much substance; and they looked upon it with covetous eyes and took counsel together to kill me and to take my goods, saying, "Let us kill our brother, and all will be ours." And Satan made this to seem good in their eyes. So they took me sleeping beside my wife and lifted us both up and threw us into the sea. When my wife ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... a novice who could read the psalter, though not without difficulty, obtained from the minister general—that is to say, from the vicar of St. Francis—permission to have one. But as he had learned that St. Francis desired the brethren to be covetous neither for learning nor for books, he would not take his psalter without his consent. So, St. Francis having come to the monastery where the novice was, "Father," said he, "it would be a great consolation to have a psalter; but though the minister-general has authorized me to get it, ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... roughness, but only achieved a tentative friendliness. Stebbins hesitated for a second; a suspicious look came into the farmer's misty blue eyes. Then Stebbins, mindful of his prison record and fiercely covetous of his new home, gave another name. The name of his maternal grandfather seemed suddenly to loom up in printed characters before his eyes, and he gave it glibly. "David Anderson," he said, and he ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... lodgings. After all, was not the world much better with him than it was with either of those two wretched married beings? And why? He had not, at any rate as yet, sacrificed for money or social gains any of the instincts of his nature. He had been fickle, foolish, vain, uncertain, and perhaps covetous;—but as yet he had not been false. Then he took out Mary's last letter and read ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... face of the waters there appeared only a forbidding and scarcely habitable coast. Low lands with islands fringed the shore. Behind them great mountains, hacked and furrowed in their outline, offered an uninviting prospect. There was here no Eldorado such as, farther south, met the covetous gaze of a Cortez or a Pizarro, no land of promise luxuriant with the vegetation of the tropics such as had greeted the eyes of Columbus at his first vision of the Indies. A storm-bound coast, a relentless climate and a reluctant ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock

... see him press his throat with his fat hand to keep from bursting into sobs and lamentations. All these visits were for the purpose of hearing the reading of Porthos's will, announced for that day, and at which all the covetous friends of the dead man were anxious to be present, as he had left no ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... tuum, and a man is most affected with that pleasure which is his, his by former enjoying and experience, and most intimidated with those pains which are his, his by a woful sense of them, in former afflictions. A covetous person, who hath preoccupated all his senses, filled all his capacities with the delight of gathering, wonders how any man can have any taste of any pleasure in any openness or liberality; so also in bodily pains, in a fit ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... goes about his work with pompous air, and solemn visage; and when darkness falls, John Burrill's lifeless form lies in state in the drawing room of Mapleton, that room over the splendors of which his plebeian soul has gloated, his covetous eyes feasted and his ambitious bosom swelled with a sense of proprietorship. He is clothed in finest broadcloth, surrounded with costly trappings; but not one tear falls over him; not one heart grieves for him; not one ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... catastrophe. It remains to be examined, whether comedy will allow pictures larger than the life, that this strength of the strokes may make a deeper impression upon the mind of the spectators; that is, if a poet may make a covetous man more covetous, and a peevish man more impertinent, and more troublesome than he really is. To which I answer, that this was the practice of Plautus, whose aim was to please the people, but that Terence, who wrote for gentlemen, confined himself within the compass of nature, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... remained in the ruined city, at first of necessity, afterwards by choice, finding there fuel and shelter in abundance besides large stores of non-perishable food supplies. When, in the next generation, these provisions became exhausted it was inevitable that the refugees should fix covetous eyes upon the threshing-floors and herd-stalls of their rural neighbors. But although the outlaws had continued to gain in numbers, their natural increase was not proportionate to the growing power ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... proper "don't care" attitude of the buyer. He presently left the "running down" business almost entirely to Miklos, being occupied in silent and feverish speculations as to how much he could afford to spend, and a passion of covetous fear lest somehow A——, or Z——, or K——, the leading collectors of the moment, should even yet forestall him, early and "exclusive" as Miklos assured him their information ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... climbing hour by hour the silver-shining stair That leads to God's great treasure-house, grew covetous; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... view of the fact that sad occurrences in the past have made it evident that the local population, incited by evil-minded persons from covetous or other motives, has taken part in the disorders, it is the duty of the gubernatorial administration to make it clear to the local communes that they are obliged to adopt measures for the purpose ... of impressing upon the inhabitants the gross criminal offence implied ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... familiar toast-and-water. There, in a recess, were the same splendid wall maps of Greece he had so often consulted after lecture. There was the little case of coins, with the gold Alexanders he had handled with so much covetous reverence at eighteen. Outside, the irregular quadrangle with its dripping trees stretched before him; the steps of the new Hall, now the shower was over, were crowded with gowned figures. It might have been yesterday that he had stood in that room, blushing with awkward pleasure ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and Judas. Later, young Mr. Mackail, applying the same method to the ministers of Charles II., was hanged. "What wonder is it then," said Knox, "that a young and innocent king be deceived by crafty, covetous, wicked, and ungodly councillors? I am greatly afraid that Achitophel be councillor, that Judas bear the purse, and that Shebna be scribe, ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... applications for territory. He had intrusted them to a base friend, by whom they were offered to the various Governments for L30,000. The Russian Ambassador is reported to have paid L10,000 to get hold of those concerning his master. His Majesty of Prussia appears to have had a covetous eye on Hanover. He always entertained a paternal regard for that country. The sovereigns in general seem to have compromised themselves deeply in their efforts ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... it on the head of the Advocate. He lacked at last words and breath to utter what was like him. He pronounced his former friend "a very dangerous man, altogether hated of the people and the States;"—"a lewd sinner, nursled in revolutions; a most covetous, bribing fellow, caring for nothing but to bear the sway and grow rich;"—"a man who had played many parts, both lewd and audacious;"—"a very knave, a traitor to his country;"—"the most ungrateful wretch alive, a hater of the Queen and of all the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... punishments, though they are rare, the aim of which is not to secure the privileges of the propertied classes. But one may confidently assert that in any society where, for every man living in ease, there are ten exhausted by labor, envious, covetous, and often suffering with their families from direct privation, all the privileges of the rich, all their luxuries and superfluities, are obtained and maintained only by ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... state here, as an act of justice to others, and to save myself from the charge of lunacy, that the Markerstown was a mere interloper. Our covetous, good old uncle had set his eye on the regular steamer of the line, and his greedy fingers had taken her away to Dixie, where her decks were now swarming with blue coats and black heels. The peaceful Markerstown, being exempt by reason of physical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... filled with a high idealism which penetrated through the miseries of his daily life; it was full, too, of a great love toward humanity in general and his unworthy nephew in particular. Towards his publishers he often appeared covetous and grasping, seeking to rake and scrape together all the money possible; but this was only for the purpose of assuring the future of his nephew. At the same time, in a merry moment, he would load down his table with all that kitchen and cellar could provide, for the reflection ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven

... eager for the news, knew better than to show any haste about it; so he kept the old mariner just long enough in waiting to damp a too covetous ardor, and then he complacently locked Arabella in her bedroom, and bolted off Kitty in the basement; because they both were sadly inquisitive, and this strange arrival ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... still adhering to the wall sheltered their fire of purloined sods, and it burned steadily and strongly between the blasts which made its red flame duck and sweel, and sent the white ash-flakes fluttering. So there was light enough to show how covetous gleams from the sisters' eyes flashed together on the shawl, of which each held a corner. And no great wisdom was needed to forecast a storm. Mrs. Smith's shawl was undeniably better than Judy's by many degrees but she had not the magnanimity ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... bride was a canting hypocrite of sixty-three, covetous, and a termagant. I answered, "I must speak the truth to your Majesty; I could not consent did she possess the treasures of the whole earth. I have made my choice, which, as an honest man, I must not break." The Empress said, "Your unhappiness is ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... Why need I fear her? I have held my own so far, and I will make a tough fight to do so in the future. Possession is said to be nine points in law and I shall hold on to my money like grim death. I never could—I never will give up these luxuries," she cried, sweeping a covetous glance around the exquisitely furnished room. "I plotted for them—I sold my soul for them and him, now they are mine—mine, and no one shall take them from me! Mona Forester, how I hated you!—how I hate your daughter, even though I have never seen her!—how ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... of France, Germany's ambitions have grown to a height out of all proportion even to the importance of her conquest. On all sides she has cast covetous eyes, stretched out her grasping hand in all directions. For only France, while still intact, possessed the courage to protect other nations from ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... you never were covetous at all, nor did you ever seem to care for the things of the world. I wish Jehan had not given you those silver buckles; I think they have set ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... time falsehood has increased in the world and truth has diminished; people talk smoothly with their tongues, but nourish deceit in their hearts; religion is destroyed, crime has increased, and the earth has begun to give little fruit. Kings levy fines, Brahmans have waxed covetous, the son obeys not his sire's commands, brother distrusts brother; friendship has departed from amongst friends; sincerity has left masters; servants have given up service; man has abandoned manliness; and woman has abandoned modesty. Five ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... noble Champagnese origin, had been for five years Count of Flanders, as heir to his mother, Marguerite II. He was a prince who did not lack courage, or, on a great emergency, high-mindedness and honor; but he was ambitious, covetous, as parsimonious as his mother had been munificent, and above all concerned to get his children married in a manner conducive to his own political importance. He had by his two wives, Matilda of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... incredible as the story seems, it is really true that she is unconscious of her blindness, and consequently begs her attendant to go elsewhere, because the house is dark. But you may be sure that this, at which we laugh in her, happens to us all; no one understands that he is avaricious or covetous. The blind seek for a guide; we wander about without ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... mortgages and temporize with creditors. Never again had he tip-toed up in the dark to rifle it. Now it was his own. And at harvest time it became literally crammed with the huge rolls of banknotes his father-in-law paid over in exchange for the oranges of the Brull orchards. And Rafael had a covetous eye on what don Matias had in the banks; for all that, too, would come to him when the old man died. Acquisitiveness—money and land—had become his one, his ruling passion. Monotony, meanwhile, had turned him into an accurate, methodical, meticulous machine; ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... fastened by a single button; his collar was greasy; he kept his hat on his head as he spoke; he wore low shoes, an open waistcoat gave glimpses of a homely shirt of coarse linen. Good-nature was not wanting in the round countenance, with its two slits of covetous eyes; but there was likewise the vague uneasiness habitual to those who have money to spend and hear constant applications for it. Yet, to all appearance, he was plain-dealing and easy-natured, his business shrewdness was so well ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... Chaldaeans; but there is reason to believe that this was a branch of industry in which they particularly excelled. We know that as early as the time of Joshua a Babylonian garment had been imported into Palestine, and was of so rare a beauty as to attract the covetous regards of Achan, in common with certain large masses of the precious metals. The very ancient cylinder figured above must belong to a time at least five or six centuries earlier; upon it we observe flounced and fringed garments, delicately striped, and indicative ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... "Covetous though we were, we could not possibly take more than two thousand livres weight of gold, which meant six journeys across the prison to the gondola. The sentinel at the water gate was bribed with a bag containing ten livres weight of gold; and as far as the two ...
— Facino Cane • Honore de Balzac

... up the bunch a dozen times before they could locate the horse Blinky desired. And when Pan espied the bay he did not blame Blinky, and from that moment, as the chase went on, he grew more and more covetous. What a horse for Lucy! Pan had been satisfied with the blue roan for her but after he saw the little bay he ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... number of persons by whose assistance they may rise is comparatively small, the government is, if I may use the expression, put up to a sort of auction. In democracies, on the contrary, those who are covetous of power are very seldom wealthy, and the number of citizens who confer that power is extremely great. Perhaps in democracies the number of men who might be bought is by no means smaller, but buyers are rarely to be met with; and, besides, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... infinite Mind, and evil to be only the suppositional opposite, without reality, without life, without power—unless you give it these things in your own consciousness. You don't have to take thought for your life. You don't have to be covetous, or envious, or fearful, or anxious. You couldn't do anything if you were. These things don't help you. Jesus said that of himself he could do nothing. But—as soon as he recognized God as the infinite principle of all, and acted that knowledge—why, then he raised the dead! ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... eccentric and self-willed person, claiming justice for himself and giving it to others, and never covetous of what was not his own. He would never give anyone credit in the payment of his works, and always insisted on having his earnest-money. For this reason Lorenzo de' Medici called him Il Caparra,[28] and he was known to many others by that name. He had a sign fixed over his shop, wherein were books ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari

... is the good that cometh of Covetousness: He liveth alway in fear to lose his riches. Again, mark how he regardeth the death of his friend: So he hath his purpose, he cares for no mo: A perfect pattern of a covetous mind, Which neither esteemeth his friend nor his foe, But rather, Avarice, might I have said so, Who, if he were gone, myself could defend, Where thou by his absence ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... be of litle value, scarce worth 5^li. A. True, it may be not worth halfe 5^li. [33] If then so smale a thing will content them, why strive we thus aboute it, and give them occasion to suspecte us to be worldly & covetous? I will not say what I have heard since these complaints came ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... decamped to another district, where she bought a blood-horse, a black beaver hat, a new side-saddle and bridle, a silver-mounted whip, and figured away in her ill-obtained finery at the fairs. It is not easy to imagine the disappointment and resentment of the covetous and credulous ladies, whom she had so easily duped. With the present race of our gutter-scum Gipsies the last remnant of Gipsy pride is nearly dead—poverty, rags, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... cut up, and which were intended evidently to make one complete suit for her. The rest, with Nanny's assistance, she had endeavored to replace again, and she had been hardly able to get it done, the space being over full, although a portion had been taken out. The covetous little Nanny could never satisfy herself with looking at all the pretty things, especially as she found provision made there for every article of dress which could be wanted, even the smallest. Numbers of shoes ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... current as criticism. Mrs. Gorman, being a chronic recipient of civic favors, advocated an appeal to the charity organization; Mrs. Snawdor, ever at war with foreign interference, strongly opposed the suggestion, while Mrs. Smelts with a covetous eye on the gilt mirror under Dan's arm, urged a sidewalk sale. As for the boy himself, not a woman in the alley but was ready to take him in and share whatever the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... Ramesses I.; in the Hittite kingdom, Saplal has left his sceptre to his grandson Mautenar, the son of Marasar, who had probably died before his father. Two young and inexperienced princes confront one the other in the two neighbour lands, each distrustful of his rival, each covetous of glory, each hopeful of success if war should break out. True, by treaty the two kings were friends and allies—by treaty the two nations were bound to abstain from all aggression by the one upon the other: but such bonds are like the "green ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... them thought the best Constitution. And, to the effectual maintenance of such a separation, the exclusion of the President's Ministers from the legislature is essential. If they are not excluded they become the executive, they eclipse the President himself. A legislative chamber is greedy and covetous; it acquires as much, it concedes as little as possible. The passions of its members are its rulers; the law-making faculty, the most comprehensive of the imperial faculties, is its instrument; it will take the administration if it can take it. Tried by their ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... nothing to make an Indian very covetous, is it?" said he, eyeing in admiration the magnificent black hair that fell over ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... during that time, surely this disagreeable fancy of his would die away, if untrue; and if true, some way would be opened by which she might put a stop to all increase of predilection on his part, and yet retain him as a friend for Leonard—that darling for whom she was far-seeing and covetous, and miserly of every scrap of love and ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... but that look, you give what's mine: I'll not one corner of a glance resign. All's mine; and I am covetous of my store: I have not love enough, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... she declared. "I keep no engagement if I do not choose. I will sing no more to this people whom I hate. My friend David, I have suffered enough. Their applause I loathe—their covetous eyes as they watch me move about the stage—oh, I could strike them all dead! They come to me, these young Austrian noblemen, as though I were already one of a conquered race. I keep their diamonds but I destroy their messages. ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... officers ascribe the licentiate's protest to other motives than the desire for the good of the island. "He has done much harm," they wrote. "He has brought some covetous young men with him and made them inspectors. They imposed heavy fines and gave the confiscated Indians to their friends and relations. He and they are rich, while the old residents have ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... a mutual sense of one another's sufferings; and not be covetous of money; but let us, by our good works, confess God, and not by those that ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... she says, 'Miss Campbell is to be married to-morrow to my Lord Bruce. Her father can give her no fortune; she is very pretty, modest, well-behaved, and just eighteen, has two thousand a year jointure, and four hundred pin-money; they say he is cross, covetous, and threescore years old, and this unsuitable match is the admiration of the old and the envy of the young! For my part I pity her, for if she has any notion of social pleasures that arise from ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis

... Venice; and Shylock as much hated Antonio, because he used to lend money to people in distress, and would never take any interest for the money he lent; therefore there was great enmity between this covetous Jew and the generous merchant Antonio. Whenever Antonio met Shylock on the Rialto (or Exchange), he used to reproach him with his usuries and hard dealings, which the Jew would bear with seeming patience, while he secretly ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... petrifying springs which change living twigs to dead stone, had made him hardened, quarrelsome, and worldly. It had drawn him away from the worship of his God; for there is deep truth in the declaration of the apostle, that the covetous man is an idolater. It was this miserable love of gold which had induced Sir Gilbert to break with the family of his wife, and separate her from those to whom her loving heart still clung with the fondest affection. Lady Grange yearned for a sight of her ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown

... was Robert, Earl of Sussex, to whom the King gave the choir of Atleburgh, in Norfolk, because it belonged to a college. "Being of a covetous disposition, he not only pulled down and spoiled the chancel, but also pulled up many fair marble gravestones of his ancestors with monuments of brass upon them, and other fair good pavements, and ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... Zerkow himself in the back room, cooking some sort of a meal over an alcohol stove. Zerkow was a Polish Jew—curiously enough his hair was fiery red. He was a dry, shrivelled old man of sixty odd. He had the thin, eager, cat-like lips of the covetous; eyes that had grown keen as those of a lynx from long searching amidst muck and debris; and claw-like, prehensile fingers—the fingers of a man who accumulates, but never disburses. It was impossible to look at Zerkow and not know instantly that greed—inordinate, ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... which it has created in man, and which the affairs of the world seem almost to require; but that it will extend no such forgiveness to the feminine creation. It may be necessary that a man should be stiff-necked, self-willed, eager on the world, perhaps even covetous and given to worldly lusts. But for a woman, it behoves her to crush herself, so that she may be at all points submissive, self-denying, and much-suffering. She should be used to thorns in the flesh, and ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... do follow those of a phlegmatic complexion? A. They are dull of wit, their hair never curls, they are seldom very thirsty, much given to sleep, dream of things belonging to water, are fearful, covetous, given to heap up riches, and are weak in the act ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... have no hope to make you live in rhyme Or with your beauty to enrich the years— Enough for me this now, this present time; The greater claim for greater sonneteers. But O how covetous I am of NOW— Dear human minutes, marred by human pains— I want to know your lips, your cheek, your brow, And all the miracles your heart contains. I wish to study all your changing face, Your eyes, divinely hurt with tenderness; I hope to win your dear unstinted grace For ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley

... take Men as they are.—How to regard a miser; a passionate man; a slow man; the covetous; those ruled by their wives; the boasting; the mild tempered; the bully. Six sorts of people from whom you are not to expect much aid or sympathy in life: the sordid, the lazy, the busy, the rich, those miserable from poverty, and ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... Northolt down, Song to obtain, O sweet reward, And walk the garden of the Bard?— But thy employ, the year throughout, Is wandering the White Tower about, Moulding and stamping coin with care, The farthing small and shilling fair. Let for a month thy Mint lie still, Covetous be not, little Will; Fly from the birth-place of the smoke, Nor in that wicked city choke; O come, though money's charms be strong, And if thou come I'll give thee song, A draught of water, hap what may, Pure air to make thy spirits gay And welcome from an honest heart, That's free ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... extremity projected beyond the bush. Then diplomacy won a piece of meat from the cookee. This they nailed to the end of the pole by means of a pine sliver. The Canada jays gazed on the morsel with covetous eyes. When the men had retired, they swooped. One big fellow arrived first, and lit in defiance of ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... a moan, drawn deep from founts of covetous and passionate agony. Then she turned and hurried up the stony path with an energy, a useless haste that evoked loud protests from Reggie Brooklyn. Eleanor did not answer him. There was beating within her veins a violence that ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the lane which was also a public road, and several neighbors going by, stopped to exchange a few words. Mr. Benton had his joke, for he discovered Jane swinging up in the topmost boughs and reaching still higher for certain unusually luscious ones that eluded her covetous fingers. ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... 'wherefore did he leave A flock that knew his saintly worth so well?' 'Why,' said the Landlord, 'Sir, it so befell He heard unluckily of our intent To do him a great honour; and you know He was not covetous of fame below, And so by stealth one night away ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... blissful security while he, with all the loyalty of an imaginative boy, was standing guard just as he had pictured himself in those heroic days when he substituted himself for the story-book knight who stood beneath the battlements and defied the covetous ogre. His thoughts, however, did not contemplate the Princess fair in a state of wretched insomnia, with himself as the ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... that may diminish it. A man of spirit, whose folly had placed him in the position I occupied towards you, would have eagerly sought an opportunity to render you any service, and would have done his poor best in your behalf. When it was accomplished he would not have been covetous of thanks, and might hope that it would be taken as some recompense for the past, and only ask to forget and be forgotten. No matter; so little that is pleasant has happened to me, that you surely can permit me to enjoy the full luxury of having saved you without having that diminished ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... not adulation for Jim McFann. Because of the Indian strain in his blood a minor undercurrent of prejudice had set in against him, more particularly among the white settlers and the cattlemen who were casting covetous eyes on reservation lands. While McFann was not strictly a ward of the Government, he had land on the reservation. His lot was cast with the Indians, chiefly because he found few white men who would associate with him on account of his Indian blood. Talpers was not loved, ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... of the cavern, he pronounced the words, "Open, Sesame," the door immediately opened, and when he was in, closed upon him. In examining the cave, he was in great admiration to find much more riches than he had apprehended from Ali Baba's relation. He was so covetous, and greedy of wealth, that he could have spent the whole day in feasting his eyes with so much treasure, if the thought that he came to carry some away had not hindered him. He laid as many bags of gold as he could carry at the door of the cavern, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous



Words linked to "Covetous" :   desirous, greedy, wishful, acquisitive



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