Jealous vs Anxious - What's the difference?
jealous | anxious | Synonyms |
Suspecting rivalry in love; troubled by worries that one might have been replaced in someone's affections; suspicious of a lover or spouse's fidelity.
Protective, zealously guarding, careful in the protection of something one has or appreciates.
Envious; feeling resentful of someone for a perceived advantage, material or otherwise.
* 1891 , Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
* 1899 , Mark Twain, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
Suspecting, suspicious.
* 1823 , Walter Scott, Quentin Durward
1.2 1.2 Envy vs. Jealousy However, this distinction is not reflected in usage, as reflected in the quotations of famous authors (above) using the word ' jealous in the sense “envious (of the possessions of others)”.
Full of anxiety or disquietude; greatly concerned or solicitous, especially respecting something future or unknown; being in painful suspense;—applied to persons; as, anxious for the issue of a battle.
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*:Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious , despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=19 *{{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 13, author=Alistair Magowan, work=BBC Sport
, title= Accompanied with, or causing, anxiety; worrying;—applied to things; as, anxious labor.
*(John Milton) (1608-1674)
*:The sweet of life, from which God hath bid dwell far off all anxious cares.
Earnestly desirous; as, anxious to please.
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* (1800-1859)
*:He sneers alike at those who are anxious to preserve and at those who are eager for reform.
Jealous is a synonym of anxious.
As adjectives the difference between jealous and anxious
is that jealous is suspecting rivalry in love; troubled by worries that one might have been replaced in someone's affections; suspicious of a lover or spouse's fidelity while anxious is full of anxiety or disquietude; greatly concerned or solicitous, especially respecting something future or unknown; being in painful suspense;—applied to persons; as, anxious for the issue of a battle.jealous
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- For you must not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. —Exodus 34:14 (NET)
- I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die.
- The neighbouring towns were jealous of this honourable supremacy.
- At length [...] the Duke demanded to know of Durward who his guide was, [...] and wherefore he had been led to entertain suspicion of him. To the first of these questions Quentin Durward answered by naming Hayraddin Maugrabin, the Bohemian; [...] and in reply to the third point he mentioned what had happened in the Franciscan convent near Namur, how the Bohemian had been expelled from the holy house, and how, jealous of his behaviour, he had dogged him to a rendezvous with one of William de la Marck's lanzknechts, where he overheard them arrange a plan for surprising the ladies who were under his protection.
Usage notes
Some usage guides seek to distinguish "jealous" from “envious”, using jealous' to mean “protective of one’s ''own'' position or possessions” – one “jealously ''guards'' what one has” – and ''envious'' to mean “desirous of ''others’'' position or possessions” – one “''envies'' what others have”. “Envious/Jealous]”, Paul Brians, ''[http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/book.html Common Errors in English Usage]''This distinction is also maintained in the psychological and philosophical literature.See [http://plato.stanford.edu/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy], [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/envy/ Envy], [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/envy/
Derived terms
* jealously adverb * jealousy noun * jealousness nounReferences
Anagrams
*anxious
English
(Anxiety) (Webster 1913)Alternative forms
* anctious (obsolete)Adjective
(en-adj)citation, passage=Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.}}
Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd, passage=But, with United fans in celebratory mood as it appeared their team might snatch glory, they faced an anxious wait as City equalised in stoppage time.}}