avaricious

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English avaricious,^[2] borrowed from Old French avaricios (“greedy, covetous”),^[3] modern avaricieux,^[3][4][5] from avarice (“greed”).^[3][4][5] The OED explains the French adjective as formed from the noun as if from Latin *avāritiōsus.^[4] The noun avarice is from Latin avāritia (“greed”), from avārus (“greedy, grasping”),^[3][4][6] an adjective from aveō (“to crave, long for”), which Etymonline traces to Proto-Italic *awe- (“to be eager”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Miserly, stingy: about 1390, in Chaucer, who wrote in the Tale of Melibee that "men blamen an auaricious man by cause of his scarsitee".^[2][3] Chaucer used the word ten times.^[7] The OED, whose entry has not been revised since 1885, has its first quotation from Caxton's translation of the Game and Playe of the Chesse (1474).^[4]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline dates the sense "greedy, covetous" to the early 15th century,^[3] and the Middle English Dictionary quotes it from Hoccleve (1412) and Lydgate's Fall of Princes (before 1439).^[2] Both senses, the miser's hoarding and the wish for more, stayed together: Merriam-Webster Unabridged defines the word as a strong desire to amass wealth, often stingily and only to hoard it.^[8] Johnson (1755) defined it as "covetous; insatiably desirous" and quoted Macbeth.^[9] Old English had feoh-georn in the same sense.^[3] The adverb avariciously and the noun avariciousness are recorded from the mid 16th century.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1390 – miserly, stingy, in Chaucer.^[2][3]
• 1412 – greedy, covetous, in Hoccleve.^[2][3]
• 1474 – immoderately eager to gain wealth; figuratively, eager to acquire anything.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Driven by avarice; excessively eager to gain and keep wealth; greedy or grasping: The avaricious landlord raised the rent again.^{[8][4][11][12]}
2. Figuratively, eager to acquire or amass anything.^[4]

Word family

• avariciously
• avariciousness

Related words

• avarice

Usage notes

Dictionary.com sets avaricious beside covetous, greedy and rapacious.^[13] In its account avaricious suggests an obsessive greed for money or valuables, usually joined with miserliness.^[13] Covetous suggests a strong, often wrongful desire for what belongs to another, and greedy, the most general, an uncontrolled desire for almost anything.^[13] Rapacious is stronger and implies aggressive seizing.^[13]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
8. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
12. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House