greedy
- 1Full of greed; consumed by selfish desires for wealth, possessions, or gain.
Investors grew greedy during the boom and ignored every warning sign.
The greediest executives kept collecting bonuses while the company collapsed.
Similaravaricious, grasping, acquisitive, rapacious, covetous
Note
The word began in the stomach. Old English grēdiġ meant "greedy, hungry, eager", from a Proto-Germanic word for hunger, and it is simply greed plus -y. Edmund Spenser's lion and tiger in The Faerie Queene (1590) rush out "with greedy pace", still half animal appetite. W. B. Maxwell's "greedy sharks" in The Mirror and the Lamp (1918) keep the predator in view. It compares regularly: greedier, greediest.
- 2Inclined to eat excessively or to take more food than one needs.
The greedy gulls snatched fries right off our plates before we could stop them.
He's always been greedy at buffets, piling his plate twice as high as anyone else's.
Similargluttonous, voracious, ravenous, piggish
- 3Trying to find the best overall solution by choosing the locally best option at each stage.
Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm is greedy, always extending the route through the closest unvisited node.
The scheduler uses a greedy strategy, assigning each job to the first available machine.
Oppositenongreedy
Note
Computer scientists apply it to algorithms and strategies. A greedy method commits to the best-looking choice at each stage. That reaches the global optimum only for problems with optimal substructure and the greedy-choice property. Elsewhere it can settle on a worse answer. In the pattern-matching sense the opposite is often called lazy, but here the usual contrast is simply nongreedy.
- 4Matching as much text as possible rather than the smallest amount that would satisfy a pattern.
The pattern <.*> is greedy, so it matched everything from the first tag to the last.
Add a question mark after the quantifier when a greedy match swallows too much of the line.
Oppositereluctant, lazy, nongreedy
Note
A regular-expression term for how a quantifier behaves. Given a choice, a greedy one consumes the longest stretch of text that still lets the whole pattern match. Its opposite goes by three names: lazy, reluctant and nongreedy. All three describe a quantifier that takes the least it can. Programmers usually attach the word to a match or a quantifier, as in "a greedy match."
Less common meaning
- 5Sought or pursued with eager, selfish desire.
The poets warned that greedy gain brings sorrow to those who win it.
He wasted his best years chasing the greedy spoils of war.
Note
Here the greed has moved from the person to the prize: greedy spoils are the spoils people are greedy for. Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great, written about 1587–88, has soldiers "running headlong after greedie spoiles." The usage is archaic. Today a phrase like greedy gain reads as poetic or deliberately old-fashioned, and most readers will assume greedy describes the seekers.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of greedy apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
From Middle English gredy, from Anglian Old English grēdiġ ("greedy, hungry, eager"), from Proto-Germanic *grēdagaz ("hungry"), ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root. It is essentially greed plus -y, and is related to Dutch graag, Danish grådig, and Gothic grēdags ("hungry").