covetousness

1. Strong desire. [R.]

When workmen strive to do better than well,
They do confound their skill in covetousness.

2. A strong or inordinate desire of obtaining and possessing some supposed good; excessive desire for riches or money; -- in a bad sense.

Covetousness, by a greed of getting more, deprivess itself of the true end of getting.

Syn. -- Avarice; cupidity; eagerness.

noun

1. Resentful or painful desire for another's advantages: enviousness, envy, jealousy. See desire.
2. Excessive desire for more than one needs or deserves: acquisitiveness, avarice, avariciousness, avidity, cupidity, graspingness, greed. Informal grabbiness. See desire, give/take/reciprocity.

The noun has 3 meanings:

Meaning #1: an envious eagerness to possess something

Meaning #2: extreme greed for material wealth
  Synonyms: avarice, avariciousness, cupidity

Meaning #3: reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins)
  Synonyms: avarice, greed, rapacity, avaritia