Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Morbid greediness or selfishness.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Excessive or insatiable
greed ,avarice ,covetousness , thedesire to have more, agreedy desire for certain goods - noun a psychiatric disorder characterized by
greediness , an excessive desire for acquisition of wealth or objects
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Hence, greed, which is a form of selfishness or pleonexia.
The Root of All Evil 2008
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The Greeks call the violation of this law pleonexia; that is, a desire of more than their share.
Leviathan 2007
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It is the clarity of calculation and proportion that does away with the constant striving for more (pleonexia), which produces discord in the state.
Archytas Huffman, Carl 2007
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If, as I think may fairly be done, the glory of the Legend be chiefly claimed for none of these, but for English or Anglo-Norman, it can be done in no spirit of national _pleonexia_, but on a sober consideration of all the facts of the case, and allowing all other claimants their fair share in the matter as subsidiaries.
The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) George Saintsbury 1889
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The two are so closely allied that the Greek for "covetousness" (pleonexia) is used sometimes in Scripture, and often in the Greek Fathers, for sins of impurity.
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Scott definitions: "poikilia = metaph: cunning; pleonexia = a disposition to take more than one's share; polupragmosunê = meddling."
Plato and Platonism Walter Pater 1866
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For him, music is still everywhere in the world, and the whole business of philosophy only as it were the correct editing of it: as it will be the whole business of the state to repress, in the great concert, the jarring self-assertion (pleonexia) + of those whose voices have large natural power in them.
Plato and Platonism Walter Pater 1866
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With the sins of uncleanness the apostle here, as in the preceding chapter, v. 19, connects pleonexia, covetousness.
A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians 1797-1878 1860
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Liddell and Scott in the interpretation of [Greek: pleonexia] itself as only the desire of getting more than our share, may perhaps be bettered by the authority of the teacher, who, declining the appeal made to him as an equitable [Greek: meristês] (Luke xii. 14-46), tells his disciples to beware of coveteousness, simply as the desire of getting more than we have got.
On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature John Ruskin 1859
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I suspect that this was the case, because Christ takes occasion from it to warn against covetousness, pleonexia -- a desire of having more, more than God in his providence has allotted us.
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume V (Matthew to John) 1721
smeggo commented on the word pleonexia
An insatiable need for more of what one already has.
I can't get enough words like this.
October 10, 2008
qms commented on the word pleonexia
His antics are having effects bizarre.
Take note of the nerve-shattered wrecks we are!
The truth, be it told:
He's hungry for gold
And driven by deep pleonexia.
June 4, 2017