ENVIOUS • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Envious

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ˈɛnviəs/ Listen

adjective

Envious adj.

Malignant; mischievous; spiteful. (Obs.) "Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch."

Feeling or exhibiting envy; actuated or directed by, or proceeding from, envy; said of a person, disposition, feeling, act, etc.; jealously pained by the excellence or good fortune of another; maliciously grudging; followed by of, at, and against; as, an envious man, disposition, attack; envious tongues. "My soul is envious of mine eye." "Neither be thou envious at the wicked."

Inspiring envy. (Obs. or Poetic) "He to him leapt, and that same envious gage Of victor's glory from him snatched away."

Excessively careful; cautious. (Obs.) "No men are so envious of their health."

See images of 'Envious'

Etymology of 'Envious'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Envious" Quotes from Famous Books

... The mother of Iskender pouted, envious. "Here there is never anything to call a show. Even when Daud el Barudi married, there were no fine dresses. Every woman present wore the head-veil. I fain would try a Frankish hat myself; but the ladies will not let me—curse ...

— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... the difficulty! If only the people whose envious tongues were now wagging could see Kitty as she was, could understand what a gulf lay between her and the ordinary "fast" woman, there would be an end of this silly, ill-natured talk. Other women might be of the earth earthy. Kitty ...

— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... friend Mr. Garwood, C.E. At Alexandria a great repose fell upon my spirit; it was like gliding into a smooth port after a storm at sea. All the petty troubles and worries of Cairo; the cancans, the intrigues, the silly reports of the envious and the jealous, with the buzz and sting of mosquitoes; the weary waiting; the visits of "friends" whose main object in life seemed to be tuer le ver; and the exigencies of my late fellow-travellers, who, after liberal ...

— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... originally like from what they have only learned to tolerate perforce. And these Royal Nautical Sportsmen had the distinction still quite legible in their hearts. They had still those clean perceptions of what is nice and nasty, what is interesting and what is dull, which envious old gentlemen refer to as illusions. The nightmare illusion of middle age, the bear's hug of custom gradually squeezing the life out of a man's soul, had not yet begun for these happy-starr'd young Belgians. They still knew that the ...

— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... our persons; no Certainty, no Enjoyment of our Possessions; no Justice between Man and Man, no Distinction between Good and Bad, between Friends and Foes, between Father and Child, Husband and Wife, Male or Female; but all would have been turned topsy-turvy, by being exposed to the Malice of the Envious and ill-Natured, to the Fraud and Violence of Knaves and Robbers, to the Forgeries of the crafty Cheat, to the Lusts of the Effeminate and Debauched, and what not! Our Courts of Justice can abundantly testify the dire Effects of Mistaking Men's Faces, of counterfeiting ...

— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

More quotes...