What is covetousness: definition of the term, examples in life

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

What is covetousness? This word is obsolete, so many find it difficult to give its correct interpretation. Meanwhile, the very meaning of this lexical unit is by no means outdated, and it is associated with such concepts as corruption, extortion, extortion, profit. It will be all the more interesting to consider what it means - covetousness.

Dictionary interpretation

The meaning of the word "extortion" there is marked "outdated" and looks like this.

• Firstly, these are actions to collect, soft extortion of someone else's property, the results of someone else's labor, money.
• Secondly, this is one of the vices of greed, covetousness, greed.

To understand what covetousness is, acquaintance with the synonyms of the word will help.

Synonyms

Among them you can find such as:

• extortion;
• cheating;
• gagging;
• covetousness;
• usury;
• greed;
• bribery;
• greed;
• bribery;
• greed;
• requisitions;
• gluttony;
• corruption;
• blackmail;
• banditry;
• racket;
• pull;
• sucking;
• usura;
• weaning;
• bait;
• corruption;
• sucking;
• grabbing;
• animalism;
• racket;
• squeezing;
• coercion;
• grabbing.

The origin of the studied word comes from the word "interest". Therefore, in order to understand what extortion is, one should carefully consider it.

What is interest?

The word "extortion" consists of two parts "dashing" and "property", and literally it means "to have interest". What is interest?

The dictionary says the following about the meaning of this lexeme. It also has two shades of meaning, which are marked "obsolete".

• The first of these indicates the profit received, the interest due on capital loaned.
• The second refers to any gain that is self-serving and excessive.

Etymology

The explanatory dictionary says that the word "likhva" is of Proto-Slavic origin, which is also typical for:

• Old Russian, Old Church Slavonic, Russian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian "excess";
• Serbo-Croatian "lȉhva";
• Slovenian lȋhva;
• Czech lichva - "usury";
• Polish andUpper Luga lichwa.

The word is borrowed from Gothic, where there is a noun leiƕa, meaning "loan", "loan", as well as a verb leiƕan, the meaning of which is "to lend". There is a similar verb in Old High German with the same meaning, which is written lîhan.

Continuing to consider what extortion is, it would be appropriate to turn to words that are close in meaning to “excess”.

Synonyms

These include the following:

• profit;
• excess;
• profit;
• growth;
• interest;
• overabundance;
• win;
• benefit;
• income;
• dividend;
• earnings;
• revenue;
• profit;
• interest;
• surplus;
• excess;
• benefit;
• profit;
• rent;
• excess;
• bust;
• proc;
• gain;
• hype;
• profit;
• rise;
• growth;
• multiplication;
• increase.

Further it will be told about what extortion is in Orthodoxy.

Religious aspect

You can learn about what kind of sin - covetousness, for example, from the "Orthodox Catechism". The meaning of what is stated there regarding this sin is as follows.

It means a situation where a person acts in violation of the laws of justice and philanthropy. He uses the labor of others or the property of others to his advantage. Sometimes he uses for personal gain evenplight of their neighbors. Vivid examples of this are:

• burdening debtors with high interest rates by lenders;
• exhaustion of dependent people with unnecessary work;
• selling overpriced bread in famine years.

In this case, these actions are accompanied by a reference to some right, which is actually absent.

The Eighth Commandment

If we talk about the word "covetousness" in a broad sense, then it is interpreted as greed, that is, the passion of greed, covetousness. It is in this meaning that it is found in the New Testament, in particular, in the letters of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, Romans, Colossians and Ephesians.

In this sense, it can be fully correlated with such a commandment of the Law of God as "Thou sh alt not steal!". In it, God forbids appropriating what is the property of other people. Here, in addition to theft and robbery, bribery is condemned, charging for work that is not done, charging large amounts of money from the needy when they take advantage of their misfortune, embezzlement of someone else's property.

This also includes debt evasion, concealment of what is found, measuring and weighing when selling, withholding salaries to employees, etc.

To engage in such unseemly deeds that fit the definition of covetousness, a person is motivated by his addiction to pleasures and material goods. The Christian faith teaches to resist the love of money, to be hardworking, selfless and merciful.

Examples in modern life

Despite the fact that the word "extortion" is outdated, the phenomenon itself, unfortunately, has not become obsolete today. One can even say that with the advent of market relations in our economy, it has blossomed into a terry flower.

One of the most striking examples is corruption and bribery in the highest echelons of power. Waves of arrests have been following one after another across the country. And people who, until recently, had high ranks and seemingly unlimited influence, find themselves behind bars. They greedily and insatiably sought to acquire material we alth. And they got carried away so much that, breaking all laws, both moral and civil, they made it their habit, their way of life. This is what is called covetousness.

Another example is the “addiction” of the population to take loans at huge interest rates, which can reach up to 400% per annum. At the same time, lenders often take advantage of the plight of borrowers. They “slip” them contracts with obviously unfulfillable conditions, where real estate appears as collateral. It is often the only home.

As a result, a person who is in a difficult situation, confused, sometimes crushed by life's hardships, signs papers drawn up by scammers. As a result, he not only cannot improve his shaken affairs, but sometimes he actually ends up on the street. At the same time, it should be noted that often he cannot achieve the truth even in court. Thus, representatives oflaw.

Bribery

This word is often used as a synonym for covetousness. What is the difference between bribery and extortion?

The meaning of the word "bribe" in the dictionary is as follows. The first of them, obsolete, denoting remuneration, payment for some kind of work. Later it came to mean a bribe. That is, remuneration to an official for those actions that he must already perform by virtue of his official duties.

Earlier, in the criminal law in force in Tsarist Russia, such types of crimes as covetousness and bribery were distinguished:

• When a bribe was given for performing actions that were part of the duties of an official, this was interpreted as bribery.
• If they received remuneration by committing an official misconduct or a crime lying in the sphere of official activity, then this was considered as extortion.

In other words, when an official, performing his immediate duties, gave the petitioner a copy of the court decision in the original, did this only after receiving a bribe, he was considered a bribe taker. If the official issued a copy of the decision, where the essence of the case was distorted in accordance with the interests of the briber, he was a liar.

If we consider these terms from a modern point of view, then bribery (bribery) is one of the varieties of extortion.