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The quality of being greedy; vehement and selfish desire. Fox in stealth, wolf in greediness. Shak.

An excessive or inordinate desire of gain; greediness after wealth; covetousness; cupidity. To desire money for its own sake, and in order to hoard it up, is avarice. Beattie.

Greediness; strong appetite; eagerness; intenseness of desire; as, to eat with avidity. His books were received and read with avidity. Milward.

Greediness of appetite for flesh. [Sportive.] Pope.

To do something suddenly with an unexpected motion; to catch or attempt to seize. Out of greediness to get both, he chops at the shadow, and loses the substance. L'Estrange.

To eat up with greediness; to consume ravenously; to feast upon like a wild beast or a glutton; to prey upon. Some evil beast hath devoured him. Gen. xxxvii. 20.

Greediness; voracity; ravenousness; rapacity. Bacon.

To swallow with greediness or in large quantities; to devour. Spenser.

Swallowed with greediness, or in large draughts.

To swallow; especially, to swallow with greediness, or in large mouthfuls or quantities. The fish has gorged the hook. Johnson.

An eager desire or longing; greediness; as, a greed of gain.

Excessive appetite; greediness; voracity. [R.] Sir T. Browne.

Greediness of appetite that can not be satisfied or appeased; insatiability. The eye of the covetous hath a more particular insatiableness. Bp. Hall.

Insatiable; as, insatiate thirst. The insatiate greediness of his desires. Shak. And still insatiate, thirsting still for blood. Hook.

The act or practice of extorting or exacting by oppressive injustice; exorbitant greediness of gain. "The rapacity of some ages." Sprat.