EN'VY, verb transitive [Latin invideo, in and video, to see against, that is, to look with enmity.]

1. To feel uneasiness, mortification or discontent, at the sight of superior excellence, reputation or happiness enjoyed by another; to repine at another's prosperity; to fret or grieve one's self at the real or supposed superiority of another, and to hate him on that account.

Envy not thou the oppressor. Proverbs 3:31.

Whoever envies another, confesses his superiority.

2. To grudge; to withhold maliciously.

To envy at, used by authors formerly, is now obsolete.

Who would envy at the prosperity of the wicked?

EN'VY, noun Pain, uneasiness, mortification or discontent excited by the sight of another's superiority or success, accompanied with some degree of hatred or malignity, and often or usually with a desire or an effort to depreciate the person, and with pleasure in seeing him depressed. envy springs from pride, ambition or love, mortified that another has obtained what one has a strong desire to possess.

Envy and admiration are the Scylla and Charybdis of authors.

All human virtue, to its latest breath,

Finds envy never conquered, but by death.

Emulation differs from envy in not being accompanied with hatred and a desire to depress a more fortunate person.

Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave,

Is emulation in the learn'd or brave.

It is followed by of or to. They did this in envy of Caesar, or in envy to his genius. The former seems to be preferable.

1. Rivalry; competition. [Little used.]

2. Malice; malignity.

You turn the good we offer into envy

3. Public odium; ill repute; invidiousness.

To discharge the king of the envy of that opinion.