covet

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English coveiten, earlier cuveiten,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French coveitier, also cuveitier,^[4][5][6][7] later covoitier and modern French convoiter, reshaped after words in con-.^[1][5][8][9] The Anglo-Norman verb coveiter is recorded from the first half of the 12th century.^[10] Dictionaries reconstruct the French verb's source in slightly different ways: Barnhart, Klein and Dictionary.com give Vulgar Latin *cupidietāre, a verb on *cupidietās, an alteration of Latin cupiditās (“passionate desire”) influenced by nouns such as pietās and ānxietās;^[3][8][11] the OED, Hoad and Skeat give the type *cupiditāre;^[4][12][13] and the American Heritage Dictionary, Collins and Merriam-Webster Unabridged pass through a French noun, coveitié (“desire”).^[14][15][16] All end at the Latin noun, from cupidus (“very desirous”), from cupiō (“to long for, desire”).^{[5][3][17][4]} The OED compares Old Occitan cobeitar and Italian cubitare.^[4] Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories suggests that the Latin verb may be akin to vapor (“steam”) and Ancient Greek καπνός (kapnós, “smoke”), with a basic meaning of smoking or boiling.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To desire sexually, with fleshly appetite: before 1250, in the Ancrene Riwle, spelt cuveiten.^[4][3] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-13th century, and Dictionary.com's range starts in 1175.^[5][11]

Semantic evolution

Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories presents the word as cupidity in disguise, the same Latin noun reaching English by a longer route through French sound changes.^[9] From the start it leaned towards wrongful desire: sexual appetite in the first record, then, from before 1300, longing for what belongs to another, which the OED calls the ordinary sense.^[4] Robert of Gloucester's chronicle already has the proverb all covet all lose.^[4][2] A neutral or good sense, simply to wish eagerly for something, comes in during the 14th century,^[5][4] and survives alongside the other: Johnson (1755) gave "to desire inordinately" first and "to desire earnestly" second, quoting "But covet earnestly the best gifts" from 1 Corinthians.^[18] The sexual sense faded out in the 16th century.^[4][6] Chaucer uses coveiten 25 times.^[19]

Timeline

• before 1250 – to desire with fleshly appetite (obsolete by 1577).^[4]
• before 1300 – to long culpably for what belongs to another.^[4]
• 1297 – the proverb all covet all lose.^[4]
• c. 1325 – to desire a material thing eagerly.^[4] Etymonline dates the good sense to the mid-14th century.^[5]
• before 1340 – to desire something immaterial, in Rolle's Psalter.^[4]
• c. 1384 – without an object, to feel culpable desire, in the Wycliffite Bible.^[4]
• c. 1400 – with an infinitive, to wish to do something.^[4]
• 1634 – to desire to eat, to hanker after as food.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To feel strong or excessive desire for something that belongs to another: He coveted his neighbour's orchard for years.^[14][4][15]
2. To wish for something earnestly; to long for it: Young actors covet that award.^[14][16][4]
3. Intransitive, to feel such a desire.^[14][18]
4. (obsolete, before 1250–1577) To desire sexually, with concupiscence.^[4][6]

Word family

• covetable
• coveter
• covetingly
• uncoveting

Related words

• covetous
• cupidity
• Cupid
• concupiscence

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
17. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
18. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
19. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme