green with envy

Very jealous of another person. My daughter loves being on stage, so she is just green with envy that Alice got the lead in the school play. When I was a kid, I threw my brother's birthday cake on the floor because I was green with envy that it wasn't my birthday. As a parent, you've got to always make sure things are split evenly between your kids, or they'll be green with envy.

See also: envy, green

*green with envy

Fig. appearing jealous; appearing envious. (*Typically: be ~ become ∼.) My new car made my neighbor green with envy. Bill was green with envy that I won first place.

See also: envy, green

green with envy

Full of desire for someone's possessions or advantages; extremely covetous. For example, Her fur coat makes me green with envy. Shakespeare described envy as the green sickness ( Anthony and Cleopatra, 3:2), but the current phrase, dating from the mid-1800s, is the one most often heard. Also see green-eyed monster.

See also: envy, green

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

green with envy

If you are green with envy, you very much want to do something that another person is doing or have what they have. She told us she was going to live in Paris and we were all green with envy. This is the most exciting discovery I have made in 20 years of digging. Archaeologists everywhere will be green with envy. Note: This expression is usually used light-heartedly rather than disapprovingly. Note: A greenish-coloured skin on the face was traditionally believed to show jealousy.

See also: envy, green

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

green with envy

very envious or jealous.

See also: envy, green

ˌgreen with ˈenvy

very jealous (= wanting something that somebody else has): He was green with envy when he saw their expensive new car.

See also: envy, green

green-eyed monster/green with envy

Jealousy. The green-eyed monster comes straight from Shakespeare’s Othello (3.3), where the villain Iago tells Othello, “O! beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-ey’d monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” The poet’s allusion is to the green-eyed cat family who tease their prey, seeming to love and hate them at the same time. However, a greenish complexion also was associated with jealousy, and elsewhere Shakespeare wrote “Troubled with the green sickness” (Antony and Cleopatra, 3.2). Jealousy and envy are not precisely synonyms; the first is a feeling of resentment against someone who enjoys success or an advantage, or who is a rival; the second is more a feeling of covetousness with regard to someone’s possessions or advantages. Nevertheless the color green came to symbolize envy as well, although somewhat later.