How to Use covetous in a Sentence
covetous
adjective- The expensive car drew many covetous looks.
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Pesci plays Russell with a subtle menace conveyed through a blank look or a slyly covetous gaze.
—New York Times, 6 Nov. 2019
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Just one covetous block of sidewalk with landscaped tree lawns and disability ramps on both ends.
—Megan Schrader, The Denver Post, 20 Feb. 2017
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His covetous attention to their wealth, though useful, can be awkward.
—The Economist, 21 June 2018
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In her grief, Lennie abandons her musical pursuits (leaving her school-band solos to the covetous queen bee Rachel, played by Julia Schlaepfer).
—Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 10 Feb. 2022
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The news media, major sponsors, fans and famous college coaches were covetous — and anxiously waiting to hear what his choice would be.
—Marc Tracy and Adam Zagoria, New York Times, 4 Oct. 2017
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A room full of late-18th-century gentlemen’s waistcoats drove me mad with covetous desire (thankfully Google can take you there).
—Hamish Bowles, Vogue, 30 Aug. 2017
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The Bears are casting a covetous glance at a 326-acre parcel of revenue-spinning potential that lies near two interstate highways and a Metra station.
—John Keilman, chicagotribune.com, 19 June 2021
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In Punjab, even under the British, families like Sohel’s kept up connections in the underworld, just to make sure that covetous eyes were not unduly drawn to their property and treasure.
—Cressida Leysho, The New Yorker, 31 Aug. 2021
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The intimate friendship that forms between Philip and Farinelli forms the core of the play, with Philip by turns caressing and covetous, and Farinelli half admiring and half fearful of his patron’s mercurial temper.
—Constance Grady, Vox, 7 June 2018
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Durant, who will be a free agent at season’s end and is rumored to cast covetous eyes at the splendidly terrible Knicks, badly strained his calf muscle and disappeared in an earlier playoff round.
—Michael Powell, New York Times, 3 June 2019
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But humans are curious, covetous and prone to disregard terrible odds.
—Malia Wollan, New York Times, 4 Apr. 2018
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But in the name of humane egalitarianism, the Mars critics would swap out the alleged narcissism of wealthy visionaries for their own even more narrow and covetous egomania.
—James Poulos, Orange County Register, 29 Apr. 2017
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Their devotion to this training space feels peculiar in its intensity, as does their covetous desire for their sensei’s approval.
—Justin Chang, Twin Cities, 19 July 2019
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Yet there is another tradition of interpretation that has unfortunately proven more prevalent: that for which the Bible serves as a source of covetous power.
—Jonathan L. Walton, Time, 22 June 2018
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While early admirers of the first president depicted her as deeply spiritual and self-denying, by the mid-20th century she was portrayed as complaining, cold and covetous.
—Marjoleine Kars, Washington Post, 25 July 2019
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The complaints, online and in the news media, have struck at the heart of Mr. Sisi’s carefully created image as a staunch nationalist defending Egypt against covetous foreign powers, and forced his government to defend its decision.
—Kareem Fahim, New York Times, 15 Apr. 2016
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Whatever their covetous neighbors say, Taiwan and Ukraine have the essential features of independent nationhood.
—Christopher Demuth, WSJ, 4 Feb. 2022
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This, combined with America’s failure to build its own fortified islands in the South China Sea and line their shores with a gauntlet of antishipping missiles, will amount to the de facto surrender of international waters to a covetous competitor.
—Mark Helprin, WSJ, 11 Oct. 2018
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Conventional wisdom is that corporations cannot innovate because executives are too covetous of their profits to risk pursuing unproven ideas.
—Andy Binns, Fortune, 31 Jan. 2022
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According to a new study from Freedom House, the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the global crisis of liberal democracy as covetous autocrats take advantage of the emergency to expand their powers.
—Ian Beacock, The New Republic, 24 Dec. 2020
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Such an ideal of liberty is the spiritual precondition for our wasteful and decadent industrial system, preventing us from distinguishing our genuine needs from our covetous desires.
—Harrison Stetler, The New York Review of Books, 21 Jan. 2020
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'covetous.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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