[a. F. cupidité, ad. L. cupiditāt-em passionate desire, f. cupidus eagerly desirous.]
1. gen. Ardent desire, inordinate longing or lust; covetousness. Const. † of, for. arch.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, 110. Cupiditie of worldly substance or goodes.
1548. Hall, Chron. Hen. VII., an. 11 (R.). That tyraunt blynded … with the cupiditie of rulynge and souereigntie.
1566. Painter, Pal. Pleas., I. 57. Men whiche be giuen to cupiditie of gouernement, honor, and glorie.
1648. W. Mountague, Devout Ess., xiii. 86 (R.). The serpent … thus sharpens the curiosity while he suggesteth the cupidity.
1755. Johnson, Cupidity, concupiscence; unlawful or unreasonable longing.
1809–10. Coleridge, Friend (ed. 3), III. 96. The cupidity for dissipation and sensual pleasure in all ranks.
b. (with pl.) An inordinate desire or appetite. arch.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apophth., I. 85 a. These cupiditees by philosophie to ouercome, in a more honest and ioyly thyng.
1598. Barkcley, Felic. Man (1631), 506. Immoderate desires & cupidities.
1623. Wodroephe, Marrow Fr. Tongue, 216 (T.). All sorts of cupidities do hinder us to know the word of God.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (1812), VI. 179 (D.). She calls her idle flame love—a cupidity which only was a something she knew not what to make of.
1859. G. Bush, Doctrines & Disclosures of Swedenborg (1875), 52. A spirit … has appetites, cupidities, desires, affections, loves.
2. spec. Inordinate desire to appropriate wealth or possessions; greed of gain.
1436. Pol. Poems (Rolls), II. 184. Allas, cupidité! That they that have here lyves put in drede Schal be sone oute of wynnynge, al for mede.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 225 (Webster, 1828). No species of property is secure, when it once becomes an object large enough to tempt the cupidity of indigent power.
1817. Jas. Mill, Brit. India, II. V. i. 326. The country of the Rohillas was an object of cupidity to both.
1872. Yeats, Growth Comm., 23. Their riches only excited the cupidity of a hardier race.
