# greedy

Pronunciation: US say "GREE-dee" /ˈɡɹidi/; UK

## Adjective

1. Full of greed; consumed by selfish desires for wealth, possessions, or gain.
   - Simple: Wanting much more money or things than you need, and not willing to share.
   - _Investors grew greedy during the boom and ignored every warning sign._
   - _The greediest executives kept collecting bonuses while the company collapsed._
2. Inclined to eat excessively or to take more food than one needs.
   - Simple: Always wanting to eat more food than you need.
   - _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._
3. Trying to find the best overall solution by choosing the locally best option at each stage.
   - Simple: Solving a problem by always picking the choice that looks best right now, without looking ahead.
   - _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._
4. Matching as much text as possible rather than the smallest amount that would satisfy a pattern.
   - Simple: Trying to match as much text as possible instead of stopping at the smallest match.
   - _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._

## Adjective

5. Sought or pursued with eager, selfish desire. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: Chased after or wanted with very strong, 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._

## 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").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/greedy (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).