This is a thread about the difference of the two. But, um, it’s not going to be THAT exciting. It’s about the two words themselves.
“Jealousy” and “envy” should be two different things, but I trip over the difference. Let’s take Bill Gates. The dude’s a billionaire, happily married to a beautiful and intelligent wife, and the foundation the two started makes the world a better place. I love the guy.
I would love to have his life.
So here’s the question: Is that “jealousy” or is it “envy”?
I think I heard once that it’s jealousy if you want the same things the other person has and envy if you actually want to take them from the person.
So if you just want to also be rich and have a hot wife it’s jealousy. If you want specifically his house, his money, his wife etc. that’s envy.
I think of Jealousy involving affections, and Envy involving more tangible property or personal qualities. If I feel like I should have a person’s affections, but somebody else has it instead, that is jealousy. If I want tsomebody else’s money or car or good looks or cooking skills, it is envy.
Don’t forget coveting!
That’s even stronger than envy, I think, and definitely in a more “I want what you have, and I don’t want you to have it” way.
I get you, and I want it to be a simple distinction like that, but I fear it’s not. The Wikipedia entry for jealousy describes it thus:
That’s not good at all. Shoot, it’s hardly excusable.
And “envy”, of course, is one of the seven deadly sins. That’s pretty damn (heh, biblical) not excusable either.
And on preview, HA!, Rhiannon8404 bring ups the word “coveting” , which kind of confuses me more. “Coveting” is bad, and these are the only words we have. I mean that in the sense that it doesn’t seem like there is a word in the English language that describes the emotion of “I wish I had what he has, but I’m still very happy that he has it”.
You’re right, there really isn’t a word for that emotion that I can think of. It’s sort of a combination of admiration and aspiration, maybe. “I admire what he has and I aspire to have it as well.”
This is an interesting article on the subject. According to most psychologists, apparently, envy is a two way situation while jealously involves three parties. If you envy a person, you want what they have and you don’t have. If you’re jealous, then a possession you have - such as a relationship - is threatened by a third person.
So you’re envious of Bill Gates, not jealous. Although in everyday speech, they have almost identical meanings.
People misuse these two words all the time. It bugs me but I don’t correct them.
One means, “Man, I wish I had what you have.”
The other means, “I wish I had what you have, and I don’t want you to have it.”
So which is which? Dunno, some say envy’s the former and jealousy’s the latter; some say it’s the other way around. But it’s clear these two attitudes exist and are different.
Well, how do they misuse them? That’s the whole point of this. You can’t sit back and say “people are wrong all the time - but I’m right”, without actually explaining how you’re right.
Bullshit. They mean the same damn thing.
I thought others had already explained the difference quite well and saw no reason to repeat the explanations.
Here is how Webster’s 2nd defines “envy”:
Here’s how it defines “jealousy”:
So one accepted definition of “jealousy” is “envy.” If you want to distinguish between them, jealousy is based on the fear of losing someone or something you have, while envy is based on the desire for what someone else has. Some people treat the words as synonyms, and Webster’s 2nd recognizes that. I prefer to make a distinction, but I have no control over how others use language.
If you don’t treat the words as synonyms, you’re envious of Bill Gates, not jealous of him. Gates might feel jealous if he thought someone was after his wife.
I’m on board with those that have it as such:
Jealousy - I want to have what you have.
Envy - I want what you have and don’t want you to have it.
That’s how I’ve always heard it put.
…and I’ve always heard them defined exactly the opposite.
Right. It’s envy if you wish *you *had what the other guy has, and jealousy if you wish he didn’t have it.
For me, envy is somewhat more innocent, “I wish I was as good a gardener as her!”
Whereas jealousy seems more dark. To me it implies added bitterness or even anger, that ‘they’ don’t deserve such and such, are unworthy, etc.
(It’s been very interesting to read everyone’s different nuanced reasoning!)
I have to say that I’ve never looked up either word. I always assumed that, if armedmonkey knew Melissa Gates, and if she chose Bill over armedmonkey, (or otherwise gave him more attention than to armedmoneky), then armedmonkey would feel jealousy. But since it’s not actually Melissa Gates herself that armedmonkey wants, but rather what she represents, then it’s envy. Moreover, for me, envy would not necessarily entail a desire for Bill to loose Melissa.
In other words, you can envy someone and not wish them any ill. It’s considered unbecoming to be envious not because you wish someone else harm, but because you are self-centered by only thinking about what you don’t have, and by not celebrating what he has.
The Webster’s and Wikipedia entries seem to support this, but now I see that many people understand and use the terms conversely, and I hear people use them interchangeably often.
I would say nearly the opposite of that. Jealousy has a far more negative quality. You want what they have instead of them having it. Envy is just wishing you had the same or similar.
That’s a pretty good distinction.
Another good one, though I believe even envy can turn dark, in a Dickensian way. I think Uriah Heep was riddled with envy, not jealousy (though no doubt he had some of the latter too, but it was the former that drove him.)
Admittedly, there is a mere semantic question here: what do we mean by the words, and clearly, many people don’t make much of a distinction. But once the distinction is made clear, most people will agree that different emotions are attached.
As a youngster I had difficulty distinguishing between the two and had to train myself about the difference. Well, I suspect I’m missing the jealousy gene, or whatever mental mechanism it is that causes people to feel it. I’ve never felt it, despite being madly infatuated with a girl who loved another guy, whom I became good friends with, and played bridge regularly with them both when I (out of pure chance) happened to wind up in the same apartment building. I envied him: I wanted her to dig me. But she didn’t. I didn’t have any negative feelings toward either of them, though I was bummed out for my own sake (I got over that, after a year or so.)
My wife of 27 years has never given me any reason to feel jealousy, so perhaps I’m capable but just haven’t been put to the test, other than the case above.
Regardless, I’ve certainly seen behavior in others that I can attribute to some special emotional cocktail that goes by the name of “jealousy” and is clearly distinct from mere envy.
I agree with the most recent posts. I think most people would be envious of Bill Gates. Who wouldn’t want to have effectively limitless money to be able to donate to causes you believe in?
But to be jealous of Bill Gates implies that I think I deserve all that money instead of him. I think envy is more abstract (I desire Bill Gates’s lifestyle), jealousy is more personal (my emotions are more directed toward Bill Gates as a person).