lust after

present singular third person lusts after · participle present lusting after · participle past lusted after · past lusted after

1. transitiveTo have strong sexual feelings or desires for someone with whom the individual is not in a relationship with.

   He was lusting after the woman in the tight leather miniskirt.

   5 more examples

   But I ſay vnto you / that whoſoever eyeth a wyfe / luſtynge affter her / hathe committed advoutrie with her alredy in his hert.

   1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Matthew v:[28], folio vj, recto

   But Paridell of loue did make no threaſure, / But luſted after all, that him did moue.

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IIII, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, page 133

   The women are for courage, Amazonian, and of ſuch account with their tyrannique Lords, that the ſafeguard of their bodies are committed ſometimes to their care, oft to their valours, but moſt to enioy perpetually their company. For ſocietie with that ſex, is much luſted after by all inflamed Aſiatiques.

   1634, T[homas] H[erbert], “A description of Sumatra”, in A Relation of Some Yeares Trauaile, Begunne Anno 1626. into Afrique and the Greater Asia, […], London: […] William Stansby, and Jacob Bloome, →OCLC, page 200

   Thy name is a curse in Israel; yet dost thou lust after the daughter of our despised race, and, could defeated passion sting thee, I were avenged.

   1838, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], “The Lion in the Net”, in “Leila; or, The Siege of Granada”, in Leila; or, The Siege of Granada: And Calderon, the Courtier. […], London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans; Paris: Delloy and Co., →OCLC, book I, page 48

   David Buss, of the University of Michigan, another evolutionary psychologist of the unerring Nicene Creed, has said that asking a man not to lust after a pretty young woman is like telling a carnivore not to like meat.

   1999 March 20, Natalie Angiers, The Guardian

2. transitiveuncommonTo have a strong desire for something.

   The declaration of Innocent III, that the whole people was condemned by God, on account of its guilt, to perpetual slavery, became the oft-cited Magna Charta for all those who lusted after the gains and possessions of the Jews; […]

   1882 June [1881 July 25], J[ohann Joseph Ignaz] von Döllinger, translated by W[illiam] M[ackintire] Salter, “The Jews in Europe”, in E[dward] L[ivingston] Youmans, W[illiam] J[ay] Youmans, editors, The Popular Science Monthly, volume XXI, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton and Company, […], page 211

   2 more examples

   Yf the waye be to longe for the, ſo that thou art not able to carie it, becauſe the place is to farre from the whiche the Lorde thy God hath choſen to ſet his name there (for the Lorde thy God hath bleſſed the) then make it in money and take the money in thyne hande, and goo vnto the place which the Lorde thy God hath choſen, and beſtowe that moneye on what ſoeuer thy ſoule luſteth after: […]

   1530 January 27 (Gregorian calendar), W[illiam] T[yndale], transl., [The Pentateuch] (Tyndale Bible), Malborow [Marburg], Hesse: […] Hans Luft [actually Antwerp: Johan Hoochstraten], →OCLC, Deuteronomye xiiij:[24–26], folio xxviii, recto

   On the mainland nearby live men who dress in rags and lust after our riches. They come in small groups in the night to steal. Their weapons are poor and their boats smaller and slower than ours. But they are people without illusions and with intelligence. Their desire to steal has made them inventive.

   1974 May, John Robert Russell, chapter 3, in Sar, New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, →ISBN, pages 63–64