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.

the green-eyed monster

Jealousy. The phrase comes from the Shakespeare play Othello. My daughter often succumbs to the green-eyed monster when she sees the toys that her friends have.

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.