What's the difference between covetousness and selfishness?

Covetousness


Definition:

  • (n.) Strong desire.
  • (n.) A strong or inordinate desire of obtaining and possessing some supposed good; excessive desire for riches or money; -- in a bad sense.

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.

Selfishness


Definition:

  • (n.) The quality or state of being selfish; exclusive regard to one's own interest or happiness; that supreme self-love or self-preference which leads a person to direct his purposes to the advancement of his own interest, power, or happiness, without regarding those of others.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A series of hierarchical multiple regressions revealed the effects of Surgency, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect on evoking upset in spouses through condescension (e.g., treating spouse as stupid or inferior), possessiveness (demanding too much time and attention), abuse (slapping spouse), unfaithfulness (having sex with others), inconsiderateness (leaving toilet seat up), moodiness (crying a lot), alcohol abuse (drinking too much alcohol), emotional constriction (hiding emotions to act tough), and self-centeredness (acting selfishly).
  • (2) They have been selfish, thinking of what they can achieve with gas.
  • (3) For a while yesterday, Hazel Blears's selfishly-timed resignation with her rude "rock the boat" brooch send shudders of revulsion through some in the party.
  • (4) A second level of concerted evolution occurs within the functional L1 sequences in a pattern that did not meet our expectations for selfish DNA.
  • (5) Not only did it make every grocery-store run a guilt trip; it made me feel selfish for caring more about birds in the present than about people in the future.
  • (6) Back in 1999 Chris Sidoti, then-head of the Australian Human Rights Commission, called the baby boomers “the most selfish generation in history”.
  • (7) It said Clinton's "cheap shots" had a hidden agenda to discredit China's engagement with Africa and "drive a wedge between China and Africa for the US selfish gain."
  • (8) We propose that REP sequences may be a prokaryotic equivalent of 'selfish DNA' and that gene conversion may play a role in the evolution and maintenance of REP sequences.
  • (9) Although angry when talking about the regime, his campaign grew from selfish motives.
  • (10) After The Arbor's success, said Barnard, the women who would become The Selfish Giant's executive producers, Lizzie Francke at the BFI and Katherine Butler from Film4, "were fantastic about saying, 'What do you want to do next?
  • (11) None of them is British, though there is great anticipation about The Selfish Giant, Clio Barnard's second feature, which premieres in the Directors' Fortnight .
  • (12) Further, it is selfish to suggest that Americans should feel some sort of responsibility for their fellow citizens.
  • (13) In an ideal world, such findings might be interpreted as smart women making smart choices, but instead it seems that this research is just adding fuel to the argument that women who don't have children, regardless of the reason, are not just selfish losers but dumb ones as well.
  • (14) Denial is absurdly selfish (and yet the best selfishness is yet to come).
  • (15) Jeremy Clarkson faced further censure on Saturday after describing people who killed themselves by jumping under trains as "selfish".
  • (16) A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations.
  • (17) In fact, Wilson's arguments are more fundamental and persuasive than Snow's; works on evolution, like Sociobiology and Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, have been absorbed into western cultural life as neatly as any neo-Darwinist could have predicted.
  • (18) Sometimes the athletes are so selfish they won't give up their own stuff to help others."
  • (19) Her newspaper profiles over the years are peppered with self-deprecating references to her sporting ruthlessness: her constant mentions of her selfishness and egotism; her win-at-all-costs, only-gold-medals-matter mentality; or the time she flung her helmet at her boyfriend in frustration after losing a race.
  • (20) This has been encouraged by the press' standard strike narrative: these selfish bastards are striking, this is bad, and it will affect you in this awful unacceptable way of maybe making you slightly late for work.

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