noun
definition
Excessive or inordinate desire of gain; greed for wealth
synonyms
definition
Inordinate desire for some supposed good.
Examples of avarice in a Sentence
To the cruelty and avarice of Charles he opposed a generous humanity.
They will be the deserved victims of their own avarice.
The egoism of the upper classes held military duty in contempt, while their avarice depopulated the countryside, whence the legions had drawn their recruits.
It was an incredibly rapid evolution, driven by avarice, compulsion, globalization, and changing societal values!
Avarice, luxury and the glaring inequality in the distribution of wealth, threatened to bring about the speedy fall of the state if no cure could be found.
The British, deluded by their avarice, still cherished extravagant ideas of Indian wealth; nor would they listen to the unwelcome truth.
Political jealousies, human avarice and treachery arrested the progress of most of their missions.
These proceedings, in conjunction with the avarice and licence of the king, led to revolution.
Avarice, lofty claims and frequent exhibitions of arrogance made him many foes.
To this end he shrank from no treachery or cruelty; yet, like Agesilaus, he was totally free from the characteristic Spartan vice of avarice, and died, as he had lived, a poor man.
His avarice and unscrupulous plundering of the revenues of the realm, the enormous fortune which he thus amassed, his supple ways, his nepotism, and the general lack of public interest in the great foreign policy of Richelieu, made Mazarin the especial object of hatred both by bourgeois and nobles.
Gifts, too, fall in, and with his native avarice and economy he rises in wealth, position and reputation for piety.
She was notorious for her profligacy, avarice and ambition, and exercised a complete ascendancy over her weak-minded husband, with the help of his all-powerful freedmen.
In the New Testament Balaam is cited as a type of avarice;6 in Rev. ii.
The Mussulmans brought with them the avarice of conquerors, and a stringent system of revenue collection.
The feebleness of Michael, whose chief interest lay in trifling academic pursuits, and the avarice of his ministers, was disastrous to the empire.
Thus the satraps aspired to independence, not merely owing to unjust treatment, but also to avarice or favorable conditions.
These two last bore the brunt of the unpopularity of the financial policy of the king during the latter half of his reign, when the vice of avarice seems to have grown upon him beyond all reason.
Society cannot be a means of satisfying the social needs of its members, but merely a means of satisfying the avarice of individuals.
It deals with political avarice in the royal family and the consequences thereof on the personal lives of those involved.
It was formerly thought that this was the Lollius whom Horace described as a model of integrity and superior to avarice in Od.
The De Institutione Coenobiorum (twelve books) describes the dress, the food, the devotional exercises, the discipline and the special spiritual dangers of monastic life in the East (gluttony, unchastity, avarice, anger, gloom, apathy, vanity and pride).
At this time the state had been brought to the brink of ruin by the growth of avarice and luxury; there was a glaring inequality in the distribution of land and wealth, and the number of full citizens had sunk to 700, of whom about roc practically monopolized the land.
Such successes removed the buccaneers further and further from the pale of civilized society, fed their revenge, and inspired them with an avarice almost equal to that of the original settlers from Spain.
Though himself pious, of blameless morality, hospitable to a fault, and so exempt from avarice, says his secretary Conti, that he could not endure the sight of money, it was Sixtus's misfortune to have had no natural outlet for strong affections except unworthy relatives; and his great vices were nepotism, ambition and extravagance.
Famine, the avarice of the rich, and the necessity of providing tribute had brought the humbler classes to the lowest straits.
The avarice with which both Tacitus and Suetonius stigmatize Vespasian seems really to have been an enlightened economy, which, in the disordered state of the Roman finances, was an absolute necessity.
But the source even of these - the passions of ambition and avarice - he finds in the fear of death; and that fear he resolves into the fear of eternal punishment after death.
They had to avoid idolatry, sorcery, avarice, falsehood, fornication, &c.; above all, they were not allowed to kill any living being (the ten commandments of Mani).
Their origin, their previous crimes or virtues, their avarice or brutality, were indifferent to him so long as they served him loyally.
His early exploits against the English were failures and revealed in the young prince both avarice and stubborn persistence in projects obviously ill-advised.
But Josephus reports of one Onias that for avarice he withheld it.
He was accepted as a disciple and promoted to a position of trust, where avarice, the only vice in which he had hitherto been unpractised, gradually took possession of his soul, and led to the complete fulfilment of his evil destiny.
The impartiality of his censures, which he directed not only against the prevailing sins of the laity, but also against heresy, simony, avarice, and impurity among the secular and regular clergy, provoked the hostility of the clergy, and accusations of heterodoxy were brought against him.
After studying medicine and philosophy at Paris he settled at Padua, where he speedily gained a great reputation as a physician, and availed himself of it to gratify his avarice by refusing to visit patients except for an exorbitant fee.
Archbishop Christopher of BrunswickWolfenbuttel (1487-1558), a brutal libertine, hated for his lusts and avarice, looked on the reforming movement as a revolt against himself.
The increased cost of government and the growing wealth of the middle class, rather than the avarice of the king and the genius of his ministers, were responsible for the genesis and direction of the new order.
He devoted himself to philosophical trifling, petty administrative and judicial details, while his craze for economy developed into avarice.
Considering the character of Joseph as it was revealed by prosperity, one is tempted to find other explanations of his conduct than avarice.
The essentially practical character of his administration has led many historians to tax him with avarice, but later research on the fiscal system of the papacy of the period, particularly the joint work of Samaran and Mollat, enables us very sensibly to modify the severe judgment passed on John by Gregorovius and others.
Although he possessed great military talents, Pompeius was the best-hated general of his time owing to his cruelty, avarice and perfidy.
It shows how a bold and p lausible adventurer, aided by the profligacy of a parasite, the avarice and hypocrisy of a confessor, and a mother's complaisant familiarity with vice, achieves the triumph of making a gulled husband bring his own unwilling but too yielding wife to shame.
Energetic, obstinate, cunning and unscrupulous, she inherited, too, her father's avarice and rapacity.
He regained his earldom and held it till his death, although he was once in serious danger from the avarice of theking (1239), who was tempted by Hubert's enormous wealth to revive the charge of treason.
Though accused of avarice and pluralism, Phillpotts was generous in his gifts to the church, founding the theological college at Exeter and spending large sums on the restoration of the cathedral.
Neither of the heroines has any but the rudiments of a moral sense; but Roxana, both in her original transgression and in her subsequent conduct, is actuated merely by avarice and selfishness - vices which are peculiarly offensive in connexion with her other failing, and which make her thoroughly repulsive.
He is to be her meal ticket for the rest of her days, and she is motivated by avarice as much as love.
This banqueting table already creaks under the weight of such stodgy signature dishes as Iraq, personal avarice and fiscal dishonesty.
Many people of this sign are born with artistic abilities, but they may feel disheartened by what they perceive as greed and avarice in the world.
At the same time, if Matthew of Edessa may be trusted, he also carried his arms against the Armenians, and plundered in his avarice every Armenian of wealth and position.