as in jealousy
a painful awareness of another's possessions or advantages and a desire to have them too
their envy of their neighbor's fancy home threatened to wreck their friendship
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in to resent
to have a resentful awareness of and desire for (another's possessions or advantages) or to feel resentment toward (someone) over possessions or advantages
her coworkers envied her chummy relationship with the senior vice president they envied him because he didn't have to work for a living
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of envy
Nataliya Gumenyuk, The Dial, 21 Apr. 2026
There is the Northeastern Health System with a new $400 million addition which will be part of a gleaming campus that is the envy of rural communities everywhere.
—Keith Sharon, USA Today, 19 Apr. 2026
Lindsey Metrus, InStyle, 8 Apr. 2026
American strategy toward Caracas amounts to granting the recycled regime the international legitimacy that Maduro never enjoyed and that Chávez might well have envied.
—Boris Muñoz, Time, 3 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for envy
Noun
Yet in the past, many of us still looked with a certain envy at the strength of the country’s institutions, the independence of its media, and the willingness of its citizens to engage in democratic life.
—Nataliya Gumenyuk, The Dial, 21 Apr. 2026
There is the Northeastern Health System with a new $400 million addition which will be part of a gleaming campus that is the envy of rural communities everywhere.
—Keith Sharon, USA Today, 19 Apr. 2026
Verb
Both women also purchased homes in Palm Beach, Florida, and maintain social lives my 20-something self would envy.
—Lindsey Metrus, InStyle, 8 Apr. 2026
American strategy toward Caracas amounts to granting the recycled regime the international legitimacy that Maduro never enjoyed and that Chávez might well have envied.
—Boris Muñoz, Time, 3 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for envy
Recent Examples of Synonyms for envy
Noun
-
Enter Grace Li, the group’s essential frenemy, held up by their parents as the model student and golden child, and thus a decades-long source of jealousy and resentment.—
Erik Pedersen,
Oc Register,
1 May 2026
-
This jealousy isn’t helping me.—
Brian Hiatt,
Rolling Stone,
1 May 2026
Verb
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His supporters touted video of Stevens being booed at the convention, only to watch other Democrats openly resent the disruption — likening it to activists on the left who refused to vote for Democratic nominees in 2016 and 2024.—
Burgess Everett,
semafor.com,
22 Apr. 2026
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Each character has totally justified and totally unjustified reasons for resenting one another, and the sensation of absorbing those contrasting opinions is like being in a stuck bumper car, barraged and battered from all sides.—
Roxana Hadadi,
Vulture,
16 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
In the centuries since colonists waged war against the crown, American’s attitudes toward the royals have shifted from hatred to adoration.—
Kathryn Palmer,
USA Today,
29 Apr. 2026
-
But the War on Terror persisted and mutated into nightmares in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then Syria, which unleashed that darkness in the form of terrorist states and a refugee crisis that spread anti-Muslim and anti-migrant hatred to Europe, the United States, and beyond.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
29 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
Over the course of the day and evening, old secrets, resentments, and regrets bubble up to the surface and Altman crafts a devastating meditation on memory, identity, and the necessity as well as the danger of a vivid fantasy life.—
Jim Hemphill,
IndieWire,
1 May 2026
-
Deborah’s relationship — with Frank, with the series, with her own legacy — is a volatile, unsteady thing, where pride and resentment, gratitude and hunger, are always battling it out.—
Jessica M. Goldstein,
Vulture,
1 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Envy.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/envy. Accessed 6 May. 2026.
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