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greedy
[ gree-dee ]
adjective
- excessively or inordinately desirous of wealth, profit, etc.:
The greedy owners of the company paid their employees too little and charged their customers too much.
Synonyms: , ,
Antonyms: ,
- having an excessive desire for food or drink:
That greedy guy ate four of those brownies before anyone else got any!
Synonyms: , , ,
- keenly desirous; eager (often followed by of or for ):
greedy for praise.
Synonyms: ,
- requiring or using much of a specified thing (often used in combination):
These big trucks are fuel-greedy.
Crops that are greedy for water should not be planted in dry regions.
- Computers.
- of or relating to an algorithm, search, etc., that operates one step at a time instead of checking all possible paths or solutions all at once and then selecting the one with the best overall outcome:
A result may be achieved faster with a greedy search, but that result is not always the correct or best one.
- of or relating to an operator or quantifier in a search query that will return the largest match result possible. Compare lazy ( def 4 ).
greedy
/ ˈɡːɪ /
adjective
- excessively desirous of food or wealth, esp in large amounts; voracious
- postpositivefoll byfor eager (for)
a man greedy for success
Derived Forms
- ˈ徱Ա, noun
- ˈ徱, adverb
Other 51Թ Forms
- ·· adverb
- ··Ա noun
- ԴDz·· adjective
- o·ver··· adverb
- o·ver···Ա noun
- ··· adjective
- ܲ·· adjective
51Թ History and Origins
Origin of greedy1
51Թ History and Origins
Origin of greedy1
Synonym Study
Example Sentences
He denigrated seniors concerned about their benefits as “greedy geezers” and added, “What a wretched group of seniors you must be ... for shoveling out this bull—.”
"If I'm being greedy I could say three. This game is not dead yet. No way."
The band played for drunk and angry bikers, accompanied wet T-shirt contests, engaged in screaming matches with greedy club owners.
Voters in the district trust him to deliver and not cut Medicaid benefits unless it is wasteful and going to the “greedy,” she said.
The problem in America is that extremely wealthy men have orchestrated a coup to further enrich themselves and their greedy families.
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Related 51Թs
More About Greedy
What doesgreedy mean?
Greedy means filled with greed—an excessive desire for more, especially for more money and possessions.
It can be used to describe people, as in greedy billionaires, or actions that are based on greed, as in It was a greedy scheme to squeeze more money out of people.
Greed and greedy are always used negatively to criticize the excessive desire for more.
Greed is often thought to influence people to do bad things in their obsession to acquire more money or more stuff. In the expression “the love of money is the root of all evil,” the love of money is another way of saying being greedy.
Less commonly, greedy can mean the same thing as gluttonous—having an excessive desire for food.
Example: These greedy hedge fund managers have more money than they can spend in a lifetime, yet they insist on trying to get away with paying the least amount of taxes possible.
Where doesgreedy come from?
The first records of the word greedy come from before 900. It comes from the Old English æ徱, which is related to the Gothic ŧ岹, meaning “hungry.” (The noun greed is first recorded much later, in the 1600s, and is actually a back formation of greedy, which means that greedy came first and was altered to make the noun greed.)
Being greedy makes people insatiable—meaning that they’re hungry to acquire more and more money or things, but they’re never satisfied with what they have.
Greed is one of the so-called seven deadly sins in Christian theology. In this context, it is sometimes known by the more formal names of avarice and covetousness. The adjectives avaricious and covetous are more formal synonyms of greedy.
In pop culture, greed is associated with the character Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol—so much so that the name Scrooge has become a way of referring to a greedy miser or moneygrubber. A more modern example of a character known for being greedy is Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall Street, whose catch phrase is “Greed is good.”
The opposite of being greedy is being generous—being willing to give away one’s money or possessions instead of being obsessed with acquiring more.
Did you know ... ?
What are some other forms related to greedy?
- greediness (noun)
- greed (noun)
What are some synonyms for greedy?
What are some words that share a root or word element with greedy?
What are some words that often get used in discussing greedy?
How isgreedy used in real life?
Greedy is always used in a critical way.
Rightly or wrongly, Wall Street CEOs are still excoriated as greedy fat cats who exemplify everything that’s wrong with executive pay
— Bloomberg Markets (@markets)
It is nice having money. I have to say it is really nice. I haven never had to worry. But I have never felt that people should starve while I have extra money. This is what billionaires think in the United States. They are beyond greedy. We need to tax billionaires to the hilt.
— Crooked Stevie (@DWade117)
people get really greedy when they see me making money and giving it to other people and it is infuriating.
— 🍁 (@DanielleFong)
Try usinggreedy!
Which of the following words is NOT a synonym of greedy?
A. avaricious
B. covetous
C. generous
D. rapacious
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