green-eyed monster

plural green-eyed monsters

1. colloquialusuallyEnvy, jealousy, covetousness.

   [Iago:] Oh, beware my Lord, of iealouſie, / It is the greene-ey'd Monſter, which doth mocke / The meate it feeds on.

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 324, column 1

   3 more examples

   She was not to be convinced, and so poor Mr. Graham, who was really exceedingly polite and affable to the ladies, was almost constantly provoking the green-eyed monster by his attentions to some one of the fair sex.

   1856, Mary Jane Holmes, chapter X, in ’Lena Rivers

   It was Harold. I decided to have him dark, with a very small black mustache, and passionate eyes. I felt, too, that he would be jealous. The eyes would be of the smoldering type, showing the green-eyed monster beneath.

   1916, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Bab, a Sub-Deb

   The green-eyed monster had bitten [Jeeves]. He was miffed because he wasn't the brains behind this binge, the blue prints for it having been laid down by a rival. Even great men have their weaknesses.

   1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XV, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC