Emily Dickinson Lexicon

EN'VY, n.

1. Pain, uneasiness, mortification, or discontent excited by the sight of another's superiority or success, accompanied with some degree of hatred or malignity, and often or usually with a desire or an effort to depreciate the person, and with pleasure in seeing him depressed. Envy springs from pride, ambition or love, mortified that another has obtained what one has a strong desire to possess. Envy and admiration are the Scylla and Charybdis of authors. Pope. All human virtue, to its latest breath, / Finds envy never conquered, but by death. Pope. Emulation differs from envy, in not being accompanied with hatred and a desire to depress a more fortunate person. Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave, / In emulation in the learn'd or brave. Pope. It is followed by of or to. They did this in envy of Cesar, or in envy to his genius. The former seems to be preferable.
2. Rivalry; competition. [Little used.] Dryden.
3. Malice; malignity. You turn the good we offer into envy. Shak.
4. Public odium; ill repute; invidiousness. To discharge the king of the envy of that opinion. Bacon.