What's the difference between covet and envy?

Covet


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To wish for with eagerness; to desire possession of; -- used in a good sense.
  • (v. t.) To long for inordinately or unlawfully; to hanker after (something forbidden).
  • (v. i.) To have or indulge inordinate desire.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) S&P – the only one of the three major agencies not to have stripped the UK of its coveted AAA status – said it had been surprised at the pick-up in activity during 2013 – a year that began with fears of a triple-dip recession.
  • (2) Concern for the future and belief in scientific progress provided the motive for the foundation of the Prize which, in our time, is one of the most coveted of honours.
  • (3) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Video: The many faces of Jürgen Klopp The deal represents a significant coup for FSG, which has convinced the coveted Klopp to abandon his sabbatical from the game after four months despite Liverpool having no Champions League football to offer.
  • (4) He might not be the hard-drinking rockstar of old but classically-trained pianist James Blake proved that cerebral compositions on a keyboard are no barrier to success after he was crowned winner of the coveted Barclaycard Mercury prize .
  • (5) It was a hat-trick of sex scandals involving Beckham, Eriksson and David Blunkett that landed the paper the coveted newspaper of the year award at last year's British Press Awards.
  • (6) Over the years the Oscars have been variously coveted and sneered at, have increasingly brought box-office value and personal prestige, become a media obsession, a gauge of industrial morale and a way of taking the national pulse.
  • (7) Their titles, like Jesse In Mexico and Hank In Pursuit, point to their primary use as emotional catalysts for the show rather than standalone pieces of music, though diehard fans will likely still covet it alongside their Breaking Bad cufflinks and Converse trainers .
  • (8) China says it has launched the world’s first quantum satellite, a project Beijing hopes will enable it to build a coveted “hack-proof” communications system with potentially significant military and commercial applications.
  • (9) Sometimes I wonder if, 20 years hence, we as a society will decide that it doesn't make sense to grant women coveted spots in advanced programmes in business, law, science or medicine.
  • (10) The coveted stars of modern football do not want to work like that.
  • (11) Its use of the internet to carry voice calls threatened to undermine the world’s biggest telecoms companies, from AT&T to Vodafone, and made it one of the most coveted up-starts in the tech world.
  • (12) The most coveted seats line the sidewalk, but the cavernous indoor space, lined with vintage beer posters and well-worn wooden alcoves, is an easy spot to settle in for the long haul.
  • (13) The Spanish champions are seeking to renegotiate with the much-coveted pair, whose deals include buy-out clauses set at around £43m.
  • (14) There are no jobs currently in existence that we covet."
  • (15) In the latest sign that McDonald’s is trying to consolidate its control of the coveted breakfast market, the fast food chain has applied to trademark a new word that could appeal to late morning risers everywhere: “McBrunch.” The application, which the maker of the Egg McMuffin filed on 23 July, signals at the very least an interest in expanding what has been one of the company’s fastest-growing and most profitable day segments.
  • (16) It is ubiquitous, yet coveted, pricey yet just about affordable.
  • (17) On the edge of Scholar’s Piece, the strip of farmland just behind King’s College, lies a granite stone which has become arguably Cambridge’s most coveted tourist attraction.
  • (18) In the movie, Peter Quill forms an uneasy alliance with a group of misfits who are on the run after stealing a coveted orb.
  • (19) When Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye receives a coveted Human Rights Defenders award in Geneva , his role as a fearless chronicler of his country's US-led drone war will have come full circle.
  • (20) Arsenal know that the Catalan club already covet two of their key players, the captain, Cesc Fábregas, and the full-back Gaël Clichy, but Arsène Wenger, the manager, has come to view Arshavin's pronouncements in the Russian media with a degree of amusement.

Envy


Definition:

  • (n.) Malice; ill will; spite.
  • (n.) Chagrin, mortification, discontent, or uneasiness at the sight of another's excellence or good fortune, accompanied with some degree of hatred and a desire to possess equal advantages; malicious grudging; -- usually followed by of; as, they did this in envy of Caesar.
  • (n.) Emulation; rivalry.
  • (n.) Public odium; ill repute.
  • (n.) An object of envious notice or feeling.
  • (v. t.) To feel envy at or towards; to be envious of; to have a feeling of uneasiness or mortification in regard to (any one), arising from the sight of another's excellence or good fortune and a longing to possess it.
  • (v. t.) To feel envy on account of; to have a feeling of grief or repining, with a longing to possess (some excellence or good fortune of another, or an equal good fortune, etc.); to look with grudging upon; to begrudge.
  • (v. t.) To long after; to desire strongly; to covet.
  • (v. t.) To do harm to; to injure; to disparage.
  • (v. t.) To hate.
  • (v. t.) To emulate.
  • (v. i.) To be filled with envious feelings; to regard anything with grudging and longing eyes; -- used especially with at.
  • (v. i.) To show malice or ill will; to rail.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In this book, he dismisses Freud's idea of penis envy - "Freud got it spectacularly wrong" - and said "women don't envy the penis.
  • (2) We are prepared to be honest with people and say that we will all need to chip in a little more.” The party’s health spokesman, Norman Lamb, said: “The NHS was once the envy of the world and this pledge is the first step in restoring it to where it should be.
  • (3) In a series of analyses guided by intuitive hypotheses, the Smith and Ellsworth theoretical approach, and a relatively unconstrained, open-ended exploration of the data, the situations were found to vary with respect to the emotions of pride, jealousy or envy, pride in the other, boredom, and happiness.
  • (4) It is difficult for me to resist a slight sense of envy for those anxiously awaiting A-level results this morning, although this may seem perverse.
  • (5) And this naturally provokes envy and jealousy.” Asked when they fell out, Blatter said: “It was after he was elected Uefa president in 2007.
  • (6) A later phase of penis envy usually represents a regressive effort to resolve oedipal conflicts.
  • (7) Self-envy interpretation may help the analyst to deal with the transferential pressure exercised by these patients, and as a consequence improving the 'working space' and providing a better analytical objectivity.
  • (8) I am looking forward to working closely with him to ensure the BBC's television portfolio remains the envy of the broadcasting world."
  • (9) Owing to its confusional characteristics, envy is always subtly disguised and hardly ever appears in a straightforward manner.
  • (10) This confused, less than beautiful, apparently dysfunctional city – the physical result of so much trauma and division – becomes charming, full of life and the envy of other cities, not for its beauty or its wealth but because of its vitality.
  • (11) Using skills acquired in his first job with the accountancy giant PricewaterhouseCoopers and his second, buying and selling companies for JP Morgan, he minted a commercial model from the calm opulence of United's discreet Mayfair office that soon became the envy of the football world.
  • (12) • Try to ignore the noise around you: the chatter, the parties, the reviews, the envy, the shame.
  • (13) Franklin puts the more personal criticism made of writers down to envy, blaming bloggers, and thinks British literary culture is uniquely mean.
  • (14) Envy or jealousy always destroys unity, even inside one household.
  • (15) Botín's father, Emilio, executive chairman of the Santander group, was behind the takeover of Abbey National in 2004 and pounced on Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley during the 2008 banking crisis, in deals much envied by rivals.
  • (16) The functions of these 'successful defence' manoeuvres are to obviate any feelings of an awareness of envy, although they may be overtly envious attacks within themselves, secondly they nullify any awareness of dependence, and also nullify awareness of need and illness, and thirdly they maintain the narcissistic organization by producing a successful identificate.
  • (17) Afterwards, she was "suddenly beautiful", and though the attention this brought was occasionally useful, mostly it was just a pain in the butt: the tiresome suggestions that she had only got on thanks to her appearance; the hurtful ire of that other great feminist, Betty Friedan, whose loathing of Steinem seemed mostly to be motivated by envy.
  • (18) Traditional drive-defense or object instinctual explanations tend to diminish awareness of the importance of self-esteem in the experience of envy.
  • (19) I envy those who have not yet read The Iliad, if such there are.
  • (20) To be sure, envy reactions to any patient are significant, whether they simply distort the therapist's perception or contribute to a deeper understanding of the patient.